Second Sunday

by Michele Andrea Bowen

  Mozelle followed Christmas reluctantly, wondering, as she walked to the tiny dance floor, how long it took the men who’d laid the flooring to get the linoleum tiles in that perfect order of red, black, and gold squares. Everything in the club was red, black, and gold—even the napkins, paper plates, and stirrers for the drinks. She doubted that the members were so meticulous about order and color in their own homes. She’d have even bet some money that most of them acted like Oscar at home and didn’t do a doggone thing.

  As soon as they got onto the dance floor, Christmas pulled Mozelle close to him and started trying to do the slow drag dance, moving his hips up against her and rubbing his palms across the middle of her back. Mozelle stepped back, looking at him as if he was crazy, and said, “If you don’t start dancing right, I’m sitting down.”

  Christmas wanted to get mad at her for breaking up his smooth moves, but he had waited so long to hold Mozelle Thomas that he wasn’t going to allow a little setback to stop him. Besides, it was nearly time for the real show to begin—when Oscar walked in and saw his wife in another man’s arms.

  Finally the record ended, but not soon enough for Mozelle, who had been scanning the room anxiously to see if Oscar arrived. But he hadn’t and she felt a stab of pain in her heart, thinking about where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing. Maybe coming to the club hadn’t been a good idea. Maybe the truth was more than she could bear.

  Christmas didn’t notice Mozelle’s sadness as he walked her back to their table. He was looking around to see if the club’s lone waitress, Warlene, was on duty tonight. He didn’t know who hired that girl, who had to be the surliest waitress in North St. Louis, with her high-yellow, dark-blue-eyed, and wavy-red-haired self. He would never forget the time she got mad at one of the members she dated for a while and as revenge refused to bring the rest of them so much as a chip of ice, because, as she said, “Y’all old Negroes workin’ what’s left of my last nerve. And I don’t feel like gettin’ none of y’all a doggone thang.”

  But Warlene could do no wrong in the eyes of the club’s president, Old Daddy, who told all of them to leave her alone. And now that Oscar was hot and heavy with Warlene’s best friend, Queenie Tyler, he, too, had become her defender.

  Christmas waved at Warlene to come over and take their drink orders. Rolling her eyes, she moved as slowly as possible in their direction, stopping to talk to some folks along the way. Then, just as she finally reached their table, Oscar and Queenie Tyler walked in. Tossing her order pad and pencil down in front of Christmas, she ran over to talk to Queenie.

  Christmas would have been furious if Warlene had run over to anyone except Oscar and Queenie. But this was the moment he had been waiting for all evening. He sneaked a glance over at Mozelle to gauge her reaction, but he couldn’t see her face—she had moved her chair into the shadows so that Oscar wouldn’t spot her right away.

  Queenie shocked Mozelle right down to her bones. She was a full-figured woman, and looked like she was close to four inches taller than Oscar. And the way she was dressed? Throughout her entire marriage, Oscar had told Mozelle that the clothes she liked to wear were unfit for a decent woman. And if he truly believed that, then what Queenie was wearing should have been an abomination in the sight of God. Mozelle could see straight through Queenie’s tight, turquoise fishnet dress to her matching flimsy slip, and right on down to her turquoise bra and bikini panties.

  Mozelle leaned over and said to Louise, “What in the world would make a woman want to come out in public dressed like that?”

  Louise shook her head and asked, “What in the world would make a man want to come out in public with a woman dressed like that? Girl, she show do look like one of those women who don’t wash they behinds good.”

  Mozelle shook her head in disgust and said, “I was just thinking, Louise, that she making that dress look right funky. Remember what our mamas used to tell us about how some menfolk like to sniff all up on a funky-looking woman, and why?”

  Louise laughed. “Honey, don’t say another word,” she said. It was rumored that such a woman was totally uninhibited in bed with a man, especially if the man belonged to somebody else. She had once overheard her grandmother whisper that one “funky-tail” woman in her town had worked a man over so good that his toes curled up so tight he couldn’t get his shoes back on.

  “Well,” Mozelle said wryly, “look like what our mamas said was true. Don’t it?”

  Louise said, “Umm-hmm. ’Cause she look like if Oscar sniff too hard, the stuff will clear out his sinuses.”

  “And,” Mozelle added with a touch of sadness in her voice, “I bet he walking ’round thinking he getting the ride of a lifetime.”

  As soon as Oscar and Queenie got settled near the bar, Christmas left Mozelle and Louise and headed over to their table. Louise figured that he wanted to feel Oscar out, so he could find the best way to let him know Mozelle was at the club. But she was not about to let Christmas get the upper hand in this mess. She whispered to Mozelle, “Get up and go over there and let Oscar know you here.”

  “He gone be mad. What do you think he’ll do?”

  “See, that’s your problem—always worried about what Oscar’ll think and what Oscar’ll do. How can he say anything, standing over there all hugged up with that floppy-tailed woman? You get over there before Christmas make his move, and then dare Oscar to say anything to you. It’s long past the time, Mozelle, for you to get Oscar Lee straightened out.”

  Mozelle got up slowly and walked over to her husband and his girlfriend’s table. She didn’t have the faintest idea what to say. On the one hand, looking at those two together was excruciatingly painful. On the other hand, Mozelle felt bold and excited, knowing that the next few minutes were going to change her life.

  Queenie’s eyes got big when she saw Mozelle Thomas bearing down on their table. Queenie had only seen Mozelle once, and from a distance. And never in a thousand years would she have expected to see such a proper and ladylike woman as Mozelle Thomas at the Mellow Slick Cougars Club. She looked down at her dress, mentally comparing it to the quality of Mozelle’s beautiful suit.

  Oscar was just registering Queenie’s shock when he felt a tap on his shoulder. As he turned to look into the face of his wife, his heart started pounding like a jackhammer, and he almost hollered out loud. Grabbing his chest, he tried to steady his heart’s erratic beat by panting out a few shallow breaths.

  Once he could breathe again, he ran his tongue across his dentures, glad that he had added a little cement glue to his adhesive. Oscar needed to get his dentures readjusted because they had started slipping around. Without that extra glue, he knew, the shock of seeing Mozelle would have knocked his teeth right out of his mouth.

  Regaining his composure, he angrily demanded, “What do you think you’re doing here, Mozelle?”

  “I was about to ask you the very same thing, Oscar,” Mozelle replied, surprised at how calm her voice came out.

  Oscar puffed up and shot her one of his fierce, chastising looks. But instead of lowering her eyes and fidgeting with an apology, Mozelle stood there motionless, just staring him in the eye.

  “Who brought you here?” he asked.

  “Why you want to know?” she replied.

  “What did you say to me, woman?”

  “I said, why do you want to know? You ain’t never home because you so busy laying up with this trashy woman. So why you want to know, Oscar Lee Thomas?”

  Queenie jumped up, towering over Mozelle, and then snapped her head around at Oscar. “I know you ain’t about to stand here and let this little siddity-tailed woman talk to me like that, Oscar Thomas,” she hissed.

  Oscar opened his mouth to speak, but Mozelle put her hands on her hips and got right up in Queenie’s face. “I know you not calling me out of my name,” she declared, “standing there looking like some old reject from the Ike and Tina Turner Revue Band. I wasn’t talking to you, so just shut your mouth and keep your young self ou
t of grown folks’ business.”

  Queenie raised her hand, open-palmed, to slap Mozelle, but Christmas, who had stepped back from the line of fire, grabbed it. “Now, darling,” he said, “ain’t no need in you getting all huffed up with Mozelle here. Oscar Lee is her husband.”

  “Husband? Not for long. Ain’t that right, Oscar?” Queenie said smugly.

  Oscar bowed his head and stared at his feet, not able to utter one word.

  Queenie bent down and stuck her face right in his. “You better TELL her, Oscar Lee Thomas.”

  “Yeah, Oscar Lee Thomas. Tell me,” Mozelle said, again amazing herself with the coolness in her voice.

  By now everybody in the club was gearing up for a fight. The DJ had cut the music off so they could all hear better, and those who’d been dancing had cleared the floor to allow unobstructed views. The silence hung heavy until Oscar managed to croak out, “Uhhh, Queenie, there ain’t nothing to tell.”

  “What?”

  “There ain’t nothing to tell. I ain’t leaving Mozelle after six babies and more than forty years.”

  Queenie stood frozen a few seconds, processing his words, then sprung to life with a roar. Sweating and huffing and puffing, she loomed over Oscar, howling, “Nothing to tell? NOTHING TO TELL? OLD fool, what you mean there ain’t nothing to TELL!”

  Oscar raised his hands, but before he could explain, Queenie yanked him up by the collar onto his feet. She cocked a big meaty fist covered with mood rings, hauled off, and punched him in the mouth, knocking him sprawling across the floor. He lay there on his back for a moment, then started scuttling around in his pink leisure suit trying to get back up. But with those heavy, four-inch platforms on his shoes, he could barely even lift his skinny little legs.

  Queenie grabbed Oscar by the ankles to drag him around the room, intent on doing some real damage to his suit. She started swishing him back and forth like she was sweeping the floor, until some old Cougars pried him loose. But Queenie wasn’t through. Blowing air out of her nose like a riled-up bull, she growled, “You kiss my big yellow behind, Oscar Thomas. I thought you was in love with me, always coming to me, telling me that your wife cut off relations with you ever since she gone through the change. Now, Miss Mozelle don’t hardly look like no uptight, no-relations woman. You ain’t nothin’ but a little black Raisinet-looking, no-good lyin’ dawg.”

  Oscar was still struggling to get up. He looked over at Mozelle for help, but she just stood there, amused. That made Oscar spitting mad—and only spit came out when he tried to give her the tongue-lashing she deserved. His teeth were locked, and he couldn’t open his mouth.

  Apparently that cement glue he had used had dripped down through his dentures and stuck his top and bottom teeth together. All he could do was writhe on the ground on his back, humiliated to the point of tears, unable to call for help because his mouth was glued shut.

  “What you got to say for yourself?” Queenie demanded, then answered, “Nothin’. Because there ain’t jack you can say.”

  Watching Oscar flail around enraged Queenie even more, and she aimed a hard kick at one side of his narrow behind. Then she snatched at Christmas so hard, it felt like his arm would pop out of its socket, telling him, “Christmas, take me home.” When he hesitated, not yet willing to abandon his plans for Mozelle, Queenie barked, “Now, Christmas, before I knock you down on the floor with Oscar and put my nasty shoe all over your high-priced Mack Daddy suit.”

  Oscar kept squirming on the floor, sweating and drooling, until it finally occurred to the bartender that he couldn’t get up. He dragged Oscar to his feet, then propped him against the bar, where he leaned back breathing hard, pointing to his teeth, and gesturing with his head as if he were trying to say something. That’s when Old Daddy, who had been standing off to the side sipping his scotch, recognized Oscar’s predicament. Lifting Oscar’s head to examine it more closely, he asked, “Oscar Lee, did you put some cement glue on your teeth?”

  Oscar nodded vigorously, looking ready to cry, as Old Daddy shook his head in exasperation. “You dummy,” he said, then turned to Mozelle. “Babygirl, take this fool to the hospital ’fore he kill his self sweating and spitting, trying to open his mouth.”

  Mozelle started to refuse, but Old Daddy just raised up his hand. “Little girl, I don’t care what you might be feeling ’bout now. You got to take this here fool to the hospital. Oscar don’t need to be like this. It ain’t safe. You hear me, Mozelle?”

  Mozelle sighed and agreed. Oscar, she realized now, had always been a pain. How she had stood him all these years was a mystery. And it was nothing short of an act of God that she had not tried to kill his mean self in his sleep.

  Oscar looked around for someone to drive him to the hospital and was relieved when he saw Louise Williams. He got out his keys and jangled them at her, hoping she’d understand his message. But Mozelle grabbed Oscar by his arm and steered him outside to where her car was parked.

  “EEEhhhh.”

  “Shut up, Oscar, and get your butt in this car.”

  His eyes opened wide. Mozelle had never mouthed off like that before.

  She opened the back door and told him, “Get in.” When Oscar looked at her like she was crazy for putting him in the backseat like a child, Mozelle just put her hands on her hips. “You better get your tail in this car or I’m leaving you right here,” she said.

  Oscar raised his hand to slap her, but Mozelle didn’t even flinch. She just drew back her fist and hissed, “I wish you would, Oscar Lee.”

  Grunting in outrage, he crawled into the backseat, and Louise let herself in the passenger door. But when Mozelle got into the driver’s seat and started up the car, Oscar sat up straight in terror.

  Mozelle peeked at Oscar in the rearview mirror as she asked, “Louise, what is the fastest way to get to Homer G. Phillips? Isn’t that the best place in town for some triflin’ craziness like this?”

  “Umm-hmm,” Louise said.

  “EEEhhhhhhhhhheeeehhhhhhh!!!!” Oscar shrieked. “Killer Phillips” was the black hospital in North St. Louis, where folks took you when you were shot, beat up, cut up, or all three. Despite its nickname, Homer G. Phillips provided fine medical care, especially to the poor, but Oscar didn’t want to chance it. He kept banging on the backseat, demanding to be taken somewhere else, until Mozelle had finally had enough. She didn’t even turn around when she said, “I told you to shut up. They got some good emergency doctors over there—best in the city—especially on a Friday night when some fools like yourself out gluing they dentures together.”

  Mozelle pulled up to the emergency entrance, where she helped Oscar out of the car, then gave Louise the keys to find a parking space. When they reached the intake desk Mozelle asked the young nurse, “Babygirl, please point me to where I need to go, so that I can get this old pimp-daddy fool’s mouth fixed.”

  “Ma’am, I can start your paperwork, but he’ll have to wait. We’ve had a couple of gunshot wounds and two stabbings came in over the past hour. Anybody with something that won’t kill him has to wait.”

  Mozelle sighed impatiently and said, “Oh, alright.”

  Louise came in just as they were finishing up the paperwork and helped Mozelle lead Oscar to the waiting area. She could tell that Oscar’s mouth and jaw were aching pretty bad—he was sweating heavily and his skin had a grayish cast. As soon as they guided him to a comfortable-looking couch, Oscar snatched his arm out of Mozelle’s hand and plopped himself down like an insolent child.

  Mozelle took a chair next to Louise and picked up an old issue of Ebony magazine. She flipped through the pages, but couldn’t concentrate because of Oscar’s constant grunting and squirming.

  “Will you be still and stop acting like a spoiled brat?” Mozelle snapped at him. “You gone make yourself feel worse than you already do, carrying on like that. You’d think, Oscar, that I did something to you. All of this is your fault. If you’d been acting like a man with some sense, you wouldn’t be sitting up in
here mad, with your mouth glued shut, and looking like a fool.”

  Oscar leaned back and closed his eyes, pretending like he was dozing off, so he didn’t have to listen to what Mozelle was saying. But Mozelle didn’t buy his act.

  “Open your eyes and look at me,” she demanded. “You ain’t ’sleep. This time you gone listen to me good, Oscar Lee Thomas. And I am going to talk as long as I want to, because there ain’t nothing your little Sammy Davis, Jr.–looking self can do about it.”

  Oscar’s eyes popped wide open. He knew that behind his back people said he looked like a St. Louis version of Sammy Davis, Jr., but it came as a big surprise that Mozelle was one of them.

  Mozelle didn’t pay Oscar any mind, just kept talking. She had kept so much bottled up inside her all these years that nothing was going to shut her up now.

  “You know something?” she told Oscar. “Almost the whole time we been married, all you’ve done is find fault with me. You say all kinds of mean things, like, ‘Mozelle, this here food ain’t hot enough, and it taste nasty—cook it over’; ‘Mozelle, you didn’t dress the children right’; ‘Mozelle, I know you ain’t wearing that dress with me, looking all cheap’; ‘Mozelle, you need to clean out this refrigerator’; ‘Mozelle, you waste your time, always reading all those books when you ought to be out in that garden picking greens for my dinner’; ‘Mozelle, you ain’t got no discipline.’ Mozelle, Mozelle, Mozelle. Negro, that’s all your old hatefulacting self knew how to do—criticize, complain, be mean, and call my name until I couldn’t stand to hear your voice no more . . .

  “And for some reason I just kept taking it, forgiving you, loving you, and hoping the day would finally come when you’d see just how good and smart a woman I am. But what did you do, Oscar? You lay up with a sloppy-tailed heifer. And you know what? If I were a different kind of woman and didn’t know Jesus, I’d walk over to your chair and knock the living daylights out of your old, tired, silly-looking, Superfly butt, just the same way Queenie did.”