A Piece of Mine

by J. California Cooper

  Anyway, he wasn’t REAL dumb and so he soon got to seeing which way the arrow pointed and jumped into that car of his which didn’t have no fender on one side in the back and a dent on the other fender (all that had happened since he been back in the city). Anyway, he drove right on back down here thout quitting his job up there. Went straight to his old job and got that back, then went to my son’s house and cleaned up and slept some and I know for myself, he went and circled Laylonny’s house SEVERAL times fore daybreak!

  Now, that next day … it was a beautiful day, just like this one, only a little rain drizzling while the sun was shining, devil whipping his wife, you know? And she was coming up the road like she is now, and that man was in that car just a following side her real slow like she walk. She prob’ly went slower that morning so she could get to hear it all, you know how we womens are. Well, he was just a talking to her trying to splain what all everything was and she would nod her head and look off into the trees. Every once in awhile she would say something, I don’t know what cause I can’t read lips yet! By time she got to the bus stop, he done jumped out that car and runned and grabbed Laylonny. Now I don’t know was it rain or tears running down Laylonny’s face, but it was all twisted up like crying do you. And when that Ralph man grabbed her and squeezed her she just simpered and sputtered and that juice in her lip shot out, just here and there, not a lot, you know, and maybe a little trickle down her chin and all. She musta spit when he was getting out the car. Anyway, she really broke into crying then! When she seen that snuff getting out, here and there, and he was justa trying to hug her and kiss her and turning her head, she say, “No, no, I got snuff in my mouth, Ralph!” And he grab her head with his hands and held it still and said, “I love you! I don’t give a got-damn if you do!!!”

  And I’ll be hot-damn if he didn’t mean it! That was four years ago and they still together!!

  Good morning, Laylonny!

  Funeral Plans

  I SHOULDN’T be tellin this secret, but you can just call me Ms. Can’thelpit cause I just can’t help it! I got to tell it!

  You can say what you willomay but I believe the Lord gives you something every time something else is taken away! If you got half a piece of sense, you will find that to be true. Just call me Ms. Senseless cause it has taken me so many years to truly know what that means and then I learned it from someone else … one of my friends, Willetta. I call her “Letta.”

  Letta and me kinda grew up together in this little one horse town, but I believe no matter how small a town is, it’s still got some of every kind of people the whole world got in it.

  Letta’s people was as good to her as two poor people could be. She was their only child, and the Lord had sure blessed them in that one thing. They both worked hard. The mama sewing and cooking for white folks and the daddy farming his own little piece of land and doing odd jobs and also working at the plant just outside of town there. They must have loved each other too, another blessing of the Lord’s, cause they sure needed it. Letta studied hard in school cause they was planning for her to go on to college and she really was smart! Me, myself, I just dreamed of getting married someday. Ms. Dreamy, you could call me.

  But when Letta was just past fifteen years, her mama had taken a nice lunch over to her daddy’s job at the plant, and as the devil would have it, one of them evil white men who was sitting in his tractor, having only a warm beer for his lunch, decided to “play” a game on Letta’s daddy and slowly backed that tractor up and claimed, when he planned to stop, the tractor kept goin backward! Well, Letta’s mama and papa was crushed up bad! The mother lost her legs, had to have em both cut off! And her daddy’s ankles and knees and hips, and shoulders was pushed together and he never could straighten out again. Leastways the doctor didn’t think there was no big reason for goin through too much trouble for em cause what was they good for anyway? I heard that myself cause I use to, and still do, kitchen work for some of the best folks here in town, and I hears a lot! You can call me Ms. Goodear, cause I got em! Well, say what you willomay, you got to know what’s goin on around you, if for nothin else cept to stay out the way of other folks’ tractors!

  Well, back to Letta and her troubles! The plant said it wasn’t no fault of theirs cause it was all in “fun,” not at working, so they didn’t have to pay nothin! Nothin! The hospital sent a big bill, and I don’t know what for, cause Letta’s mama and daddy came out of that hospital just like they went in, bent up and crushed! Ain’t no pills in the world worth all the money was on that bill! Letta just put that bill in a drawer and shut it! Was a nice white man and his wife her mama had worked for came over and had the house fixed to Letta’s name and the hospital couldn’t take that when it tried, so the bill just stayed in that drawer … for 25 or 30 years till she threw it out, til her mama and papa died, cause that’s how long she taken care of them!

  And I mean she took care of them! That’s why I said they was blessed! Neither one could move! You had to put them to the pot, put them to bed, get them up, set them up somewhere and feed em, all of it! She did it! I use to feel so sorry for them two people … just set and face and stare at each other all day long and sometimes tears comin down one face for a while and then the other, til Letta make them smile bout somethin. She kept them clean and the house clean. I would hear her sigh, them great big tired breaths sometimes but she didn’t never act mad cause her life had changed so. Future all gone. Present gonna stay forever, look like.

  Oh, people came over at first, preachers and neighbors, to try to run her little house and business but she didn’t want none of that, said she wasn’t no child. She was proving that! Sho was! I helped her all I could.

  Now, Letta had helped her mama work, cookin, sewing, and washing, so she just kept doin these things and she took to doin hair in her kitchen for a few friends and so she was able to make it. She sold some of their things what was valuable to them, watches, clothes they was never goin to use again, the piano, things like that. But not her mama’s wedding ring. She used to get so mad and frustrated and she would cry! Chile, there wouldn’t be nothin to eat! But she never sold that ring, it stayed right on her mother’s finger! Said, “my mama got to have something!” Well, they did have something! Her!!

  I don’t have to tell nobody who ever worked for money for a livin, how hard it can get to keep goin on. Letta suffered plenty hardships and went without almost everything! Some days, she didn’t eat, but mama and daddy did! Many a night she didn’t sleep, just tossed, cried at first, but finally just tossed and thought … hard. No candles or electric lights at night … save that money! Don’t burn that little bit of firewood, go to bed and cover up. She could sew, but couldn’t sew for herself, so her clothes got pretty full of thin places and she was still growing. Some of her old friends, the stupid ones, laughed at her when they see her in them clothes, glad to see her not lookin so cute anymore. She would get so disgusted, but I never did see her get mean and bitter. She just try to keep carry in on … and she did. Things got better over the years tho. Now I say that and the sayin goes so quick! To say “a year” takes less than a second I bet, and for Letta, a year, each year, took 365, 24-hour days. Long years.

  Letta’s sewing got mighty fine and the best people used her, and I mean USED her. They paid her half of what it should have cost, but they knew she needed whatever she could get, so that’s what they paid her, whatever they could get away with. And her bakin stuff she was turnin out was truly beautiful to see and sho nuff good to taste! She had taken them tools her mama-dear had given her and turned them into blessings and a full way! She was a full provider long before she was 20 years old.

  I had done got married bout that time and had two little sweet children I was raisin. They so sweet when they little! Me and my husband bought a little land and we builded a little house with our own hands. I loved my home and, come to think of it, Letta even came over there once to give us a hand on our house! She was somethin! Call me Ms. Admirer cause I sure admired her!r />
  Some mens did too, but when they come over to her house and see those two skeleton-like bodies sittin there all day and her fixin for them and them just staring and sometimes droolin, well you can’t catch everything right away, you know? Well, they just lost heart or never had it in the first place, I guess. Mens! They want to “fool” around, say that’s what she need to relax her body! But she didn’t want none of that! She say she did WANT it but not that way, cause one more mouth to feed by herself, and she would kill everything in that house! Letta had to be more tired than even I thought cause Letta had a good heart, not mean at all and wouldn’t just ordinary think of killin! Anyway, they never got married to her, so she was alone … that kinda alone … man and woman kind.

  Well bout 25 years or so after the “accident,” Letta’s mama died quiet in her sleep and Letta didn’t say it was a relief or not. Just hugged and rocked her mama til they took her away, then she put her mama’s wedding ring on a chain and put it round her neck. I said, “Why don’t you wear it on your finger?” I didn’t add the rest of what I was thinkin bout she wasn’t never going to get one of her own, but that’s what I thought … she was bout 40 then, or more! She told me, “No! I want my own weddin ring on my finger!” Well, you can call me Ms. Hushmouth, cause I sure know when to do that!

  My husband had been dead five years or so, then. Worked hisself to death, in the cold and damp, days and nights of our life. Making food, finding food, going for medicine at nights in the rain, walking babies when he needed his sleep and I was sick and couldn’t, so many things. He was a good man … my good man and my world. But one night my world slipped away from me and I was alone to raise my children. Course, I had my mama’s help, but I got to know a little more what Letta was going through, had gone through all her life. You could call me Ms. Tired and Sad, cause that’s all I remember bein … tired and sad.

  Letta’s father lived on another four or five years then he passed away too. She buried him lovingly, too. I began to look at Letta kinda funny then. Was somethin wrong with her? I mean, how can one person do everything right? Was she human? This was goin too far! She was too good to be true! I got kinda mad at her … not jealous … mad! She was my friend, but I didn’t like her bein so good! Well, you can just call me Ms. Shamed cause I’m shamed I forgot all she had done been through ALL her life. The Lord had to have given her strength and there I was getting mad at her for havin it! Just call me Ms. Shamed! How I know how tight she was holding on? Or how close she was to lettin go, losin her hold? Well, I done already told you once, you could call me Ms. Senseless!

  Two or three months after the father passed, Letta came by my mama’s house. I had done lost mine, my husband built for me. Had taken a few loans out to help my kids in some personal and sickness problems and taken a few more later on for some police problems and the kids had done moved away somewhere else and I couldn’t pay them notes and so they took my million dollar home for $400, and I moved back to my mama’s. She was down and I was taken care of her anyway. I loved her and she had been good to me. She was dyin too tho. Well, she was old. Hell, I was old! Seemed like I was always just between life and death, life and death. Scared of life and scared of death. Call me Ms. Scared, cause that’s the way I was runnin then.

  Anyway, Letta stopped by the house one day and said, “I want you to bring me some of them fancy ladies clothes magazines from your job sometimes, if you will, Ms. Friend.” She always call me “Ms. Friend.”

  I said, “I sho will, Letta. You mean the real fancy ones?”

  “Real, real fancy, Ms. Friend.”

  “You want some of the recipes magazines?”

  “Yea” she smiled, “bring some of them too, I got a plan!”

  “You got a plan?” My ears perked up.

  “Yes.” Her smile was what you would call BRIL-LI-ANT. “Been thinkin about my life … now that it’s mine to do with whatever I want! All mine!” I looked at her and she did look rested and better and I would say younger except you don’t have to be younger to look good! So I asked her, “You ain’t gone fly off to no big city and leave me here is you?” I laughed, but I sho didn’t want her to go. Misery lovin company I guess, but … well, shame, shame, shame. She laughed back, “No, I’m too tired for a big city. I just want a good husband and I got a plan to get the kind of man I want … I think!”

  “Plenty of these men roun here want to marry you now, Letta!” She frowned up her face “Yea, now that I ain’t got any problems! But they the ones with the problem now … they are all poor, cept for the ones already married, and I have decided I do not want a poor man or a poor nothin! I have already done all the poor I can take! Sides, I want to be in love and be loved!” I was gettin excited cause I wanted to talk bout things like this and never did know I had anybody to talk bout them with! I said, “I would just like a man of my own!” She answered me right back, “I don’t just want a husband, a man, Ms. Friend, they ain’t all that hard to get. I want somethin special! Somethin different! Somethin else from all what I know!”

  I couldn’t say nothin but “YEA!”

  She went on, “See, I got this plan. Now I may not win at it, maybe I’ll lose at it … but one thing, I won’t regret tryin it! I want LOVE and I think I know somethin!” She laughed a little girl laugh, “Anyway, I got a plan!” She left then and I wanted to follow her home and talk some more but I heard my mama callin me. I thought about her plan and love all night. I rushed to work so fast the next day the lady I work for musta thought I was goin crazy and if she hadn’t given me them books, I might’ve gone crazy for real all over her.

  I took them magazines over to Letta’s soon as I could cause I wanted to hear bout that plan! She was playin her new second-hand piano when I got there. She was takin lessons again for the last year or so and was soundin real good! She was playin a spiritual, with great big dips and curves and deep bass bumps in it! You can just call me Ms. Spiritual, cause I loves them! The house was beginning to look different. Not new but with more life in it. New curtains, slip covers and things like that. Say what you willomay, hope shows! Anyway, we got together over them books and this is what Letta told me. She say, “See, I been close to death for years and years. It don’t scare me none. I’ve even seen some beauty in it. Death is mighty powerful but it can be kind and gentle too. And I done been to a lot of funerals, too many maybe, but I plan to go to a lot more fore its over.”

  Now, I lowered my voice to the correct funeral tone and said, “Oh, I hope not Letta.”

  But she said, “Oh I hope so! Not wishin nobody to die, still they gone do it whether I want them to or not! And I been noticing … if a woman die, a man is left alone! If a man die, his friends come to the final hours and some of them is single and good men!” Well, right there I began to see. You can call me Ms. Quicksee now! She went on, “Well, I can sew and now I got a little extra money to spend on myself, I been makin me some beautiful clothes, bettern any I ever seen anyone wear round here!”

  Well, she sure was right about that! That sewin can sure help your closet!

  She went on, “Only chance I get to dress is for a funeral! And I’m the best dressed thing there! And everybody brings food and my cakes are the best lookin and best tasting, except for the real old ladies been bakin a long time, cause I been makin them for a livin! Now, I’m readin these French recipes and Italian recipes and I’m learnin plenty new ways to make a cake look like a angel baked it!”

  Well, she was talking to her friend so a little braggin didn’t hurt nothin!

  On she went. “I’m playin the piano better and better, so now is my time to stretch out! There is funerals around here up to 20 or 30 miles away I can go to, and even further out where I have some relatives! Why, Ms. Friend, I can find a good husband if I just make the best funerals!!”

  Well, she looked so happy and hopeful I didn’t have the heart to say how terrible it all sounded to me. She saw my look tho and said, “You better quit frowning and try to get your own self together
! You too young to be alone the rest of your life less you want to be! Do you want to grow old all by yourself?”

  I shook my head “No” cause what she said was true, I was too young! I also didn’t want to keep runnin behind some bush with a man what wasn’t mine, every now and then only, you know?

  “Well,” she said, “this can work for you too! Start doing somethin with yourself! Do you feel old?”

  “No!” I shook my head again.

  “Well, you bettter get on the ball and bounce up and do some planning of your own!”

  “Yes!” I nodded, my head like to flew off, and you can call me Ms. Grinning cause it suddenly seemed alright! I grinned my butt off all the way home cause I had a plan too! That’s the first day I really cleaned that house up and cooked a full, delicious meal for me and mama in a long time, since my husband died almost, cept for holidays!

  Letta was ahead of me tho, she was still slim from all that work she used to have to do and she could really do her hair. And she really read them books and could copy a pattern down to the ace degree! Me, I decided I would settle for a medium kind of man. Well, facts about it, I had to! I had let some things go down I never would get up no more!

  Letta started going to them funerals and taking cakes to the wakes and things. She would play the piano AFTER the funeral. She said, “No jobs, just sit and cross them clean pretty legs and look around.”