Black Like Us

by Devon Carbado

  Everybody want to dance with Gracie that night. And that’s fine with me. Along about the middle of the evening, the band is playing a real hot number, and here come Louie and Max over to me, all long-face serious, wanting to know how I can let my woman be out there shaking her behind with any stranger that wander in the door. Now they know good and well ain’t no strangers here. The Cinnamon & Spice Club is a private club, and all events is by invitation only.

  Of course, there’s some thinks friends is more dangerous than strangers. But I never could be the jealous, overprotective type. And the fact is, I just love to watch the woman. I don’t care if she out there shaking it with the Virgin Mary, long as she having a good time. And that’s just what I told Max and Lou. I could lean up against that bar and watch her for hours.

  You wouldn’t know, to look at her, she done it all herself. Made all her own dresses and hats, and even took apart a old ratty fur coat that used to belong to my great aunt Melinda to make that cute little stole. She always did her own hair—every week or two. She used to do mine, too. Always be teasing me about let her make me some curls this time. I’d get right aggravated. Cause you can’t have a proper argument with somebody when they standing over your head with a hot comb in they hand. You kinda at they mercy. I’m sitting fuming and cursing under them towels and stuff, with the sweat dripping all in my eyes in the steamy kitchen and she just laughing. “Girl,” I’m telling her, “you know won’t no curls fit under my uniform cap. Less you want me to stay home this week and you gonna go work my job and your job too.”

  Both of us had to work, always, and we still ain’t had much. Everybody always think Jinx and Grace doing all right, but we was scrimping and saving all along. Making stuff over and making do. Half of what we had to eat grew right here in this garden. Still and all, I guess we was doing all right. We had each other.

  Now I finally got the damn house paid off, and she ain’t even here to appreciate it with me. And Gracie’s poor bedraggled garden is just struggling along on its last legs—kinda like me. I ain’t the kind to complain about my lot, but truth to tell, I can’t be down crawling around on my hands and knees no more—this body I got put up such a fuss and holler. Can’t enjoy the garden at night proper nowadays, nohow. Since Mister Thompson’s land was took over by the city and they built them housing projects where the field used to be, you can’t even see the moon from here, till it get up past the fourteenth floor. Don’t no moonlight come in my yard no more. And I guess I might as well pick my old self up and go on back to bed.

  Sometimes I still ain’t used to the fact that Grace is passed on. Not even after these thirteen years without her. She the only woman I ever lived with—and I lived with her more than half my life. This house her house, too, and she oughta be here in it with me.

  I rise up by six o’clock most every day, same as I done all them years I worked driving for the C.T.C. If the weather ain’t too bad, I take me a walk—and if I ain’t careful, I’m liable to end up down at the Twelfth Street Depot, waiting to see what trolley they gonna give me this morning. There ain’t a soul working in that office still remember me. And they don’t even run a trolley on the Broadway line no more. They been running a bus for the past five years.

  I forgets a lot of things these days. Last week, I had just took in the clean laundry off the line, and I’m up in the spare room fixing to iron my shirts, when I hear somebody pass through that squeaky side gate and go on around to the back yard. I ain’t paid it no mind at all, cause that’s the way Gracie most often do when she come home. Go see about her garden fore she even come in the house. I always be teasing her she care more about them collards and string beans than she do about me. I hear her moving around out there while I’m sprinkling the last shirt and plugging in the iron—hear leaves rustling, and a crate scraping along the walk.

  While I’m waiting for the iron to heat up, I take a look out the window, and come to see it ain’t Gracie at all, but two a them sassy little scoundrels from over the projects—one of em standing on a apple crate and holding up the other one, who is picking my ripe peaches off my tree, just as brazen as you please. Don’t even blink a eyelash when I holler out the window. I have to go running down all them stairs and out on the back porch, waving the cord I done jerked out the iron—when Doctor Matthews has told me a hundred times I ain’t supposed to be running or getting excited about nothing, with my pressure like it is. And I ain’t even supposed to be walking up and down no stairs.

  When they seen the ironing cord in my hand, them two little sneaks had a reaction all right. The one on the bottom drop the other one right on his padded quarters and lit out for the gate, hollering, “Look out, Timmy! Here come Old Lady Jenkins!”

  When I think about it now, it was right funny, but at the time I was so mad it musta took me a whole half hour to cool off. I sat there on that apple crate just boiling.

  Eventually, I begun to see how it wasn’t even them two kids I was so mad at. I was mad at time. For playing tricks on me the way it done. So I don’t even remember that Grace Simmons has been dead now for the past thirteen years. And mad at time just for passing—so fast. If I had my life to live over, I wouldn’t trade in none of them years for nothing. I’d just slow em down.

  The church sisters around here is always trying to get me to be thinking about dying, myself. They must figure, when you my age, that’s the only excitement you got left to look forward to. Gladys Hawkins stopped out front this morning, while I was mending a patch in the top screen of the front door. She was grinning from ear to ear like she just spent the night with Jesus himself.

  “Morning, Sister Jenkins. Right pretty day the good Lord seen fit to send us, ain’t it?”

  I ain’t never known how to answer nobody who manages to bring the good Lord into every conversation. If I nod and say yes, she’ll think I finally got religion. But if I disagree, she’ll think I’m crazy, cause it truly is one pretty August morning. Fortunately, it don’t matter to her whether I agree or not, cause she gone right on talking according to her own agenda anyway.

  “You know, this Sunday is Women’s Day over at Blessed Endurance. Reverend Solomon Moody is gonna be visiting, speaking on ‘A Woman’s Place in the Church.’ Why don’t you come and join us for worship? You’d be most welcome.”

  I’m tempted to tell her exactly what come to my mind—that I ain’t never heard of no woman name Solomon. However, I’m polite enough to hold my tongue, which is more than I can say for Gladys.

  She ain’t waiting for no answer from me, just going right on. “I don’t spose you need me to point it out to you, Sister Jenkins, but you know you ain’t as young as you used to be.” As if both of our ages wasn’t common knowledge to each other, seeing as we been knowing one another since we was girls. “You reaching that time of life when you might wanna be giving a little more attention to the spiritual side of things than you been doing…”

  She referring, politely as she capable of, to the fact that I ain’t been seen inside a church for thirty-five years.

  “…And you know what the good Lord say. ‘Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour…’ But, ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life…’”

  It ain’t no use to argue with her kind. The Lord is on they side in every little disagreement, and he don’t never give up. So when she finally wind down and ask me again will she see me in church this Sunday, I just say I’ll think about it.

  Funny thing, I been thinking about it all day. But not the kinda thoughts she want me to think, I’m sure. Last time I went to church was on a Easter Sunday. We decided to go on accounta Gracie’s old meddling cousin, who was always nagging us about how we unnatural and sinful and a disgrace to her family. Seem like she seen it as her one mission in life to get us two sinners inside a church. I guess she figure, once she get us in there, God gonna take over the job. So Grace and me finally conspires that the way to get her off our backs is to give her what she think she want.

/>   Course, I ain’t had on a skirt since before the war, and I ain’t aiming to change my lifelong habits just to please Cousin Hattie. But I did take a lotta pains over my appearance that day. I’d had my best tailor-made suit pressed fresh, and slept in my stocking cap the night before so I’d have every hair in place. Even had one a Gracie’s flowers stuck in my buttonhole. And a brand new narrow-brim dove gray Stetson hat. Gracie take one look at me when I’m ready and shake her head. “The good sisters is gonna have a hard time concentrating on the preacher today!”

  We arrive at her cousin’s church nice and early, but of course it’s a big crowd inside already on accounta it being Easter Sunday. The organ music is wailing away, and the congregation is dazzling—decked out in nothing but the finest and doused with enough perfume to outsmell even the flowers up on the altar.

  But as soon as we get in the door, this kinda sedate commotion break out—all them good Christian folks whispering and nudging each other and trying to turn around and get a good look. Well, Grace and me, we used to that. We just find us a nice seat in one of the empty pews near the back. But this busy buzzing keep up, even after we seated and more blended in with the crowd. And finally it come out that the point of contention ain’t even the bottom half of my suit, but my new dove gray Stetson.

  This old gentleman with a grizzled head, wearing glasses about a inch thick, is turning around and leaning way over the back of the seat, whispering to Grace in a voice plenty loud enough for me to hear, “You better tell your beau to remove that hat, entering in Jesus’ Holy Chapel.” Soon as I get my hat off, some old lady behind me is grumbling. “I declare, some of these children haven’t got no respect at all. Oughta know you sposed to keep your head covered, setting in the house of the Lord.”

  Seem like the congregation just can’t make up its mind whether I’m supposed to wear my hat or I ain’t.

  I couldn’t hardly keep a straight face all through the service. Every time I catch Gracie eye, or one or the other of us catch a sight of my hat, we off again. I couldn’t wait to get outa that place. But it was worth it. Gracie and me was entertaining the gang with that story for weeks to come. And we ain’t had no more problems with Cousin Hattie.

  Far as life everlasting is concerned, I imagine I’ll cross that bridge when I reach it. I don’t see no reason to rush into things. Sure, I know Old Man Death is gonna be coming after me one of these days, same as he come for my mother and dad, and Gracie and, just last year, my old buddy Louie. But I ain’t about to start nothing that might make him feel welcome. It might be different for Gladys Hawkins and the rest of them church sisters, but I got a whole lot left to live for. Including a mind fulla good time memories. When you in the life, one thing your days don’t never be, and that’s dull. Your nights neither. All these years I been in the life, I loved it. And you know Jinx ain’t about to go off with no Old Man without no struggle, nohow.

  To tell the truth, though, sometime I do get a funny feeling bout Old Death. Sometime I feel like he here already—been here. Waiting on me and watching me and biding his time. Paying attention when I have to stop on the landing of the stairs to catch my breath. Paying attention if I don’t wake up till half past seven some morning, and my back is hurting me so bad it take me another half hour to pull myself together and get out the bed.

  The same night after I been talking to Gladys in the morning, it take me a long time to fall asleep. I’m lying up in bed waiting for the aching in my back and my joints to ease off some, and I can swear I hear somebody else in the house. Seem like I hear em downstairs, maybe opening and shutting the icebox door, or switching off a light. Just when I finally manage to doze off, I hear somebody footsteps right here in the bedroom with me. Somebody tippy-toeing real quiet, creaking the floor boards between the bed and the dresser…over to the closet...back to the dresser again.

  I’m almost scared to open my eyes. But it’s only Gracie—in her old raggedy bathrobe and a silk handkerchief wrapped up around all them little braids in her head—putting her finger up to her lips to try and shush me so I won’t wake up.

  I can’t help chuckling. “Hey Gingerbread Girl. Where you think you going in your house coat and bandana and it ain’t even light out yet. Come on get back in this bed.”

  “You go on to sleep,” she say. “I’m just going out back a spell.”

  It ain’t no use me trying to make my voice sound angry, cause she so contrary when it come to that little piece of ground down there I can’t help laughing. “What you think you gonna complish down there in the middle of the night? It ain’t even no moon to watch tonight. The sky been filling up with clouds all evening, and the weather forecast say rain tomorrow.”

  “Just don’t pay me no mind and go on back to sleep. It ain’t the middle of the night. It’s almost daybreak.” She grinning like she up to something, and sure enough, she say, “This the best time to pick off them black and yellow beetles been making mildew outa my cucumber vines. So I’m just fixing to turn the tables around a little bit. You gonna read in the papers tomorrow morning bout how the entire black and yellow beetle population of number Twenty-seven Bank Street been wiped off the face of the earth—while you was up here sleeping.”

  Both of us is laughing like we partners in a crime, and then she off down the hall, calling out, “I be back before you even know I’m gone.” But the full light of day is coming in the window, and she ain’t back yet.

  I’m over to the window with a mind to holler down to Grace to get her behind back in this house, when the sight of them housing projects hits me right in the face: stacks of dirt-colored bricks and little caged-in porches, heaped up into the sky blocking out what poor skimpy light this cloudy morning brung.

  It’s a awful funny feeling start to come over me. I mean to get my housecoat, and go down there anyway, just see what’s what. But in the closet I can see it ain’t but my own clothes hanging on the pole. All the shoes on the floor is mine. And I know I better go ahead and get washed, cause it’s a whole lot I want to get done fore it rain, and that storm is coming in for sure. Better pick the rest of them ripe peaches and tomatoes. Maybe put in some peas for fall picking, if my knees’ll allow me to get that close to the ground.

  The rain finally catch up around noon time and slow me down a bit. I never could stand to be cooped up in no house in the rain. Always make me itchy. That’s one reason I used to like driving a trolley for the C.T.C. Cause you get to be out every day, no matter what kinda weather coming down—get to see people and watch the world go by. And it ain’t as if you exactly out in the weather, neither. You get to watch it all from behind that big picture window.

  Not that I woulda minded being out in it. I used to want to get me a job with the post office, delivering mail. Black folks could make good money with the post office, even way back then. But they wouldn’t out you on no mail route. Always stick em off in a back room someplace, where nobody can’t see em and get upset cause some little colored girl making as much money as the white boy working next to her. So I stuck with the C.T.C. all them years, and got my pension to prove it.

  The rain still coming down steady along about three o’clock, when Max call me up say do I want to come over to her and Yvonne’s for dinner. Say they fried more chicken that they can eat, and anyway Yvonne all involved in some new project she want to talk to me about. And I’m glad for the chance to get out the house. Max and Yvonne got the place all picked up for company. I can smell that fried chicken soon as I get in the door.

  Yvonne don’t never miss a opportunity to dress up a bit. She got the front of her hair braided up, with beads hanging all in her eyes, and a kinda loose robe-like thing, in colors look like the fruit salad at a Independence Day picnic. Max her same old self in her slacks and loafers. She ain’t changed in all the years I known her—cept we both got more wrinkles and gray hairs. Yvonne a whole lot younger than us two, but she hanging in there. Her and Max been together going on three years now.

  Right away, Yvon
ne start to explain about this project she doing with her women’s club. When I first heard about this club she in, I was kinda interested. But I come to find out it ain’t no social club, like the Cinnamon & Spice Club used to be. It’s more like a organization. Yvonne call it a collective. They never has no outings or parties or picnics or nothing—just meetings. And projects.

  The project they working on right now, they all got tape recorders. And they going around tape-recording people story. Talking to people who been in the life for years, and asking em what it was like, back in the old days. I been in the life since before Yvonne born. But the second she stick that microphone in my face, I can’t think of a blessed thing to say. “Come on, Jinx, you always telling us all them funny old time stories.”

  Them little wheels is rolling round and round, and all that smooth, shiny brown tape is slipping off one reel and sliding onto the other, and I can’t think of not one thing I remember.

  “Tell how the Cinnamon & Spice Club got started,” she say.

  “I already told you about that before.”

  “Well tell how it ended, then. You never told me that.”

  “Ain’t nothing to tell. Skip and Peaches broke up.” Yvonne waiting, and the reels is rolling, but for the life of me I can’t think of another word to say about it. And Max is sitting there grinning, like I’m the only one over thirty in the room and she don’t remember a thing.

  Yvonne finally give up and turn the thing off, and we go on and stuff ourselves on the chicken they fried and the greens I brung over from the garden. By the time we start in on the sweet potato pie, I have finally got to remembering. Telling Yvonne about when Skip and Peaches had they last big falling out, and they was both determine they was gonna stay in The Club—and couldn’t be in the same room with one another for fifteen minutes. Both of em keep waiting on the other one to drop out, and both of em keep showing up, every time the gang get together. And none of the rest of us couldn’t be in the same room with the two a them for even as long as they could stand each other. We’d be sneaking around, trying to hold a meeting without them finding out. But Peaches was the president and Skip was the treasurer, so you might say our hands was tied. Wouldn’t neither one of em resign. They was both convince The Club couldn’t go on without em, and by the time they was finished carrying on, they had done made sure it wouldn’t.