“Yeah, my tomboy, Molly, she looks real good now. I knew you’d turn out all right,” Carrie boasted. My looks were still more important to Carrie than anything I would ever achieve. “You’d look like a real lady if you’d get outa them jeans,” she fussed.
“Oh but that’s the rage now,” Joyce fumbled.
Leroy added in his butchest voice, “Yeah, the women want to wear the pants nowadays so I tell my wife to go on out and support me, I’ll take care of the kids.”
Carrie laughed and Leroy’s wife snapped at his elbow, “Leroy, shut up.”
Carrie dragged Joyce loaded with hair spray back into her bedroom to look at a housedress she had sewn on her old White Rose machine with the treadle. Leroy turned to me, “We sure grew up, didn’t we?”
“It happens to the best of us.”
“And you’re making movies. I never thought you’d make movies. I thought you was gonna be a lawyer with that mouth of yours. You always were smarter than forty crickets. I guess I’m dumb. After the Marine Corps I came on back here and got a job working for a lawn care operation. I like being outside. Always did.”
“I remember that.”
“Yeah, I got four men working under me too. Coloreds. They’re just like us. I mean I wouldn’t socialize with ’em but the guys on the work gang, they’re just like me. Got wives and kids and car payments. We get on fine. I learned that in the service. Had to learn there. It was good for me. Ep filled me with all kinds of crap and the service kicked it outa me for sure. I went to Nam. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t even know you were in the service.”
“Marines, not just the service. Yeah, yeah I went over there and got a good look at the gooks. I started out as a diesel mechanic. Always was good with machines, you remember.”
“I remember the time you took the Bonneville apart and lost your clutch cable.”
“That was a beautiful bike. I’d like to get another one but Joyce is scared to death of them. Still like tooling with machines. I went into diesels because I didn’t want to get shot at. Got shot at anyway. God, I was glad to get back from there.”
“Did you kill anyone?”
“I don’t know. I shot at anything that moved but I never heard a yell so maybe I didn’t. I only got shot at a couple of times, it’s not like I was out there in the rice paddies. You can’t see anything anyway but you sure can smell it when it’s been dead for a couple days.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re back in one piece, Leroy.”
“Yeah, me too. It’s a shitass war. Hey, you got a boyfriend?”
“Why the hell are you asking me that? No, I haven’t got a boyfriend.”
“But you been with men. I mean, you been with other men than me?” His voice was low.
“Of course. Why?”
“I dunno. I just wondered. You’re still the only girl I can talk to.”
“Except I’m a woman now, Leroy, with a capital W.”
He looked at me, puzzled. “I can see that. You look good, Molly, real good.”
“Thanks.”
“You ever go with girls?”
“What the hell is this, twenty questions?”
“Uh, well, I haven’t seen you in so long. I just wondered, you know.”
“I know. I go out with girls every chance I get. How do you like them apples, toots?”
He studied me and then with a resigned sigh: “It’s just as well. You ain’t the kind to settle down. You always said that but I didn’t listen to you.” He hesitated, then leaned forward, lowering his voice to a whisper. “It gets boring, you know? I think somedays I’m gonna walk off the job and go down to Bahia Mar and get me a job as a crew member on a fat private yacht and sail around the world. Maybe someday I’ll do that.”
“If you do, make sure you leave your family enough to live on.”
At that instant the happy brood reappeared. “Your Aunt Carrie’s got some new housedresses, Leroy. One’s a pretty orange like the color I wanted for my new shoes.”
Leroy looked helpless. “That’s nice, honey.”
“We have to get these wild Indians to bed. Come on, hon, and say goodbye to your cousin. Aunt Carrie, we’ll see you next week. Let’s all drive out and see the new condominiums they built up above Galt Ocean Mile.”
With a look of desperation, Leroy shook my hand. Then he cautiously put his left hand on my right shoulder and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. He didn’t look into my eyes but turned his head and said to Carrie, “We won’t see her for another five years, huh, ‘Mom?’ ”
Carrie bellowed, “You’ll see her before then if I croak.”
“Aunt Carrie, don’t say such things,” Joyce gently urged.
“You take care, Molly, and let us hear from you every now and then.”
“Sure, Leroy, take care of your own self.”
He backed out the front door and got into a worn white station wagon, turned the ignition, switched on the lights, and honked the horn when he got out on the road.
“Don’t he have a lovely family and his wife is so sweet? I love that Joyce.”
“Yeah, they’re nice, real nice.”
The day that I was to leave to go home, Carrie acted like her old self. Somehow she pushed her wasting body through the kitchen like a whirlwind. She insisted on making me fried eggs and fresh-brewed coffee. Carrie considered instant coffee a sign of moral degeneracy and she was bound to make me fresh coffee even if it killed her.
After all this activity she sat down at the kitchen table, stammered, then began: “You always asked me who your real father was. I never told you. You’re such a nosy bastard you’ll find out after I’m dead so I might as well tell you myself so I know you’ll get the story straight. Ruby had taken up with some foreigner and worse, he was married. That’s why it all got hushed up.”
“What kind of foreigner was he?”
“French, full-blooded French and them’s the rottenest set. They’re even crazier than Wops. We all nearly died when we found out she was running with him and he couldn’t hardly speak English. How they talked to each other is beyond me. Probably for what they were doing they didn’t need no talking. Ruby had hot pants. Anyway, when he found out she was pregnant he jilted her. Carl tracked him down and made him agree to never claim you, to stay out of your life and Ruby’s. He was happy to agree to that.”
“Did you ever see him?”
“No, but they say he was a handsome devil. That’s where you got sharp features and dark eyes. You don’t look a whit like Ruby except you got her voice, exactly. Whenever I hear you talk if I close my eyes I can see Ruby standing there. You ain’t built like her, nothing like her ‘cept that voice. You must be your old man all over. And you talk with your hands and French people do that. He was a big athlete, you know. Oh yes, well known he was, in the Olympics or something. God knows where she met him. Ruby never went near a playing field in her life. Bet that’s where you got all your coordination, from him. She was a clumsy ass.”
“What was his name?”
“One of those damn French names, two names strung together. I can’t pronounce it. Something like John-Peter Bullette.”
“Jean-Pierre?”
“That’s it. Why the hell those people got to name themselves twice. Because they like themselves so much I suppose, the more names they got the longer it takes you to get it out of your mouth. None of our family’s like that, dreamy like those French. That’s where you get all your dreaminess and being an artist. We’re practical people. We were always practical people and we eat sensible food too. Those Frogs eat snails. Not only do they eat them, they charge you an arm and a leg for them. Never heard of anything so damn dumb in all my life.”
“I’m glad you told me, Mom. I used to wonder about it a lot.”
“I ain’t done telling you. Don’t try to cut me off. I’ve been holding this in since before you were born and now that I’m near the grave I’m getting it off my chest.” She looked down at her wrinkled che
st and hooted, “I ain’t got no chest to get it off of. You know, when I was young I had pretty tits, just like a model for a brassiere ad. This dern disease dries everything up. Gettin’ old is terrible. Just wait, you’ll find out. Here I look down and see nothing but a sugar cake with a raisin on it when I used to look down and see two full oranges.” She put her hand under her breast and pushed it up. “Hell, that don’t even do no good.”
“You want another cup of coffee, Mom?”
“Believe I will. There’s more milk in the refrigerator if you’ll get it for me. Milk cost nearly as much as whiskey. I might as well go out and spend the money on whiskey and pour that in my coffee. It’d make me feel better. We couldn’t have children. Now that’s a whole damn sorry story and I’m gonna tell you the whole thing so’s you don’t get it from the wrong people when I’m gone. Carl got syphilis the first time he had a piece of ass back in 1919. That I adjusted to when I found out, but then in 1937 I found out he was cheatin’ on me, yes, cheatin’. I didn’t say a thing about it. Everybody knew but me. Cookie, Florence, Joe—they’d all seen him at the movies with her but they never told me. Only time in her life that Florence kept her mouth shut. Coulda wrung her neck for it. The wife is always the last to know. I’d have never guessed it. He didn’t seem any different to me. Treated me like always, bought me little presents. You know how he was that way. He acted like he loved me. Then we went to a party at the Detweilers and everyone was whispering. I thought they were all talking about me so I said, What goes here? Are you all talking about me?’ Florence said, ‘Somebody should tell her.’ Now I was worried for sure and I said, ‘Just what the hell is going on?’ Everybody clammed up and Cookie hustled Florence into the kitchen. Carl and I went home. I knew something was up. The next day old Pop-pop came down all the way from Hanover to tell me. The gang all decided he should be the one to do it, after all he was my stepfather and the only relative I had left aside from Florence. Pop-pop told me that my Carl was seeing a woman named Gladys and she looked very tall and elegant. I couldn’t believe it, not after what happened with my first husband.”
“Your first husband. I didn’t know you had any husband other than Carl.”
“Oh yes, I was married once before, right before I’d’a gone to high school in 1918. Rup was his name and he beat tar outa me so I divorced him. And he ran with other women too. It was a scandal that I divorced him. People thought that was worse than him running with women. Those days you didn’t get divorced. That’s when I started smoking too. Goddamn, they think I’m trash for getting a divorce I’ll just smoke on the streets and really give them something to chew over. I smoked big cigars too so’s nobody could miss it.” She paused and picked up the thread of her original thought. “When Carl came home that night I knew I’d have to dope it out with him. I asked him what was this about him and Gladys. He told me the truth. Been seeing her for a year, he said. And he sat on that old sofa we had with the brown stripes, put his head in his hands and cried. Tears running down his face and he says to me, ‘Cat, can’t you love more than one person at a time? I love two people. What can I do?’ I lost my mind then. How could he love anyone but me? If he couldn’t be satisfied with me I was packing my bags and getting out. I loved that man. I worshipped him. He was so good to me how could he turn around and do that? I almost landed in the nut house in Harrisburg and right after my cobalt treatments. I wasn’t right in the head from that yet. I got on the bus once to go to downtown York and ended up in Spring Grove. I didn’t know east from west. Well, I carried on high and cried so much they took me to Dr. Harmeling because they thought I was losing my sight. Then Doc had a conference with Carl and me. Doc told Carl he was crazy to be with another woman. One was enough, was his thought. Put a paper bag over their head and women are all the same. Why couldn’t Carl be happy with the one he’s got? I was right in the room when the doctor said that. At least Doc was on my side. I was a good wife. So Carl broke off with that woman and I forgave him. But he broke my heart. I could never forget it. To this day I can’t believe he did that to me.” Her voice trailed off into a whine. She wiped the tears from her eyes with a napkin and looked down in her coffee cup, waiting for me to sympathize with her.
Thirty-one years ago and her life froze in that year. She enameled the sharp edge of misery into a pearl of passion. Her life revolved around that emotional peak since the day she discovered it and now she was waiting for me to share it. “I’m sorry, Mom, but, well, it doesn’t make sense to me to stay with only one person either.”
Her head jerked up and she glared at me. “Such talk. You’re oversexed, that’s what’s wrong with you.”
I looked at her blankly. I wasn’t going to encourage her in her ridiculous triumph that she was the most wronged woman in the hemisphere.
She took a breath and continued with less conviction and emotion since I wasn’t supporting her. “Then in ’44 you were born. I saw my chance. He couldn’t give me no baby so I went after you. I always wanted a baby to dress and care for. I thought you would make me happy. I sewed clothes for you, took you out in a carriage. You were a beautiful baby once we put some meat on your bare little bones. They weren’t feeding you in that Catholic orphanage. Nuns—never liked them anyway. They look like penguins to me. Carl was afraid he’d be an unfit father but he said he’d try to do right. He grew to love you. Loved you as much as if you were his own. Course you didn’t turn out like I expected but you’re still mine. All I got in this world.”
Carrie, sitting there over your coffee cup in a wasteland of worn-out silver wedding rings, feeding yourself confections of motherhood like the display cakes in the bakery where you worked—all trimming over cardboard. I fiddled with my cup and she went on, “You were born to be my baby. That’s what Pastor Needle said and I raised you to be a lady. Did the best I could.”
“I know, Mom. I’m grateful to you for taking care of me when I was tiny, feeding me, clothing me. You didn’t have much to spare. I really am grateful.”
“Don’t thank me. That’s what mothers are for. I wanted to do it.”
I glanced up at the clock; ten minutes and my cab would be there. She watched me check the time and her eyes tightened. “When you coming back this way again?”
“Can’t say. It’s hard for me to get the money up.”
“Now see, it don’t make sense for you to want women. No woman’s gonna keep you. You go out there and marry some man and he’ll keep you. You’ll have money then. You’ll be sorry. There’s no security with a woman.”
“Hell, you married a man and you didn’t have money. And security—you’re secure when you’re dead.”
“Such talk. I can’t keep up with you. When’s your cab coming?”
“In about ten minutes.”
“Well, I said all I got to say. I packed you sandwiches and there’s some Switzer cheese in wax paper. Buy yourself some milk and have a good lunch. There’s three hard boiled eggs too so you don’t have to buy any food. That’s all your old mother can give you.” Her eyes got wet again. “I done the best I could. Honey, I’m so sorry I ain’t rich. I’d buy you a moviehouse of your own if I was. I don’t say nothing this week but it hurts me to see you so drawn. You’re too skinny, girl. You’re up there working and working yourself. You always was a hard worker. I’m afraid you drive yourself too hard. Dammit to hell. I grow up with nothing and I want my kid to have something. You’re starting out from scratch cause I got nothing to give you. I did the best I could. Don’t hate me, honey, don’t hate me.”
I put my arms around her and her white head hid underneath my breasts. “Mom, I don’t hate you. We’re different people, strongwilled people. We don’t always see eye to eye. That’s why we fought so much. I don’t hate you.”
“And I never said that thing you said I said. I never said you weren’t mine. You are mine.”
“Oh, I got mixed up, that’s all. Forget it.”
“I love you. You’re the only thing I keep living for. What else I
got—the t.v.”
“I love you too.”
The taxi honked outside and Carrie looked as though she’d seen the angel of death. She tried to carry my suitcase, but I told her not to do that. I ran out with the equipment and came back for my suitcase. She stretched her hands toward me. “Give this old dried apricot a kiss.” I gave her a hug and a kiss and as I turned to go to the taxi she coughed, “You write me, now. You write me, you hear?”
I turned and nodded that I would. I couldn’t speak. The taxi pulled away and Carrie was leaning against the faded pink wall waving goodbye. I waved back.
Carrie, Carrie whose politics are to the right of Genghis Khan. Who believes that if the good Lord wanted us to live together he’d have made us all one color. Who believes a woman is only as good as the man she’s with. And I love her. Even when I hated her, I loved her. Maybe all kids love their mothers, and she’s the only mother I’ve ever known. Or maybe underneath her crabshell of prejudice and fear there’s a human being that’s loving. I don’t know but either way I love her.
Professor Walgren’s scrotum shriveled when I walked back in with the equipment. He raved on about how irresponsible I was to go off with all that hardware when other people needed to use it. He threatened to revoke my scholarships but had to back off from that idea since it was my last semester and the semester was nearly over. He sputtered, fumed, blew his nose, and eventually shut up.
Project night was a big event. All the other students had their “chicks” with them vying for who was best dressed in the downwardly-mobile category. They introduced their dates as “my chick” or “my old lady.” I came by myself. It freaked them out that I didn’t swish in with some bearded number sporting a tie-dyed tee shirt. And the projects began. The one that drew the most applause was a gang rape on an imaginary Martian landscape with half the cast dressed as Martians, the other half, as humans. All the men mumbled about what a profound racial statement it was. The “chicks” gasped.
Rubyfruit Jungle Page 18