Just Plain Folks

by Lorraine Johnson-Coleman

  “Lost your head?”

  “Yeah. I was so darn mad when I went to courtin’ her Saturday and seen them moonshine bottles all lined up there by the door that I just took and hurled every last one of them in the ditch. Boy, was she mad then! Took out that rifle of hers and threatened to fill my britches with buckshot if I didn’t get the heck out of there right then. She said she wasn’t going to let no man tell her how to live or what to do! Well, I just got out of there quick as I could. I ain’t said one word to her since, and I ain’t goin’ to. When she sees the error of her ways, she’ll be beggin’ for my forgiveness, and then if I decide to take her back, it will be on my say-so. Meantime, well … hey, how did you know I was fussin’ with Sister Clara? She come by and tell you?” He eyed her suspiciously.

  “No, a little bird told me,” said Sister Nellie with a grin as she spotted one particularly pitiful tomato.

  Just then a young man came in, looked to be about sixteen. Sister Nellie looked him over real good, trying to figure out who he could belong to. He was slope-headed like the Richardsons. Every one of them Richardsons was slope-headed. Folks said the grandma marked ’em by getting mad at a neighbor one day and hitting the woman in the head with an iron. The Lord was punishing every last one of ’em for the sins of the past, so they was all born slope-headed. She looked again at the young’un, this time eyeing his knees. Only folks got knees like that would be the Williamsons. Everyone of ’em got skinny legs, big feet, and knock knees. He sure had Williamson legs, but then again, every one of the Williamsons got squinty little eyes like Chinamen. They always look like they’re falling asleep when you talk to ’em, and this boy here got big bug eyes like the Waters folks. Bug eyes, every last one of ’em. They all got eyes so big they look like they can see through you and around you at the same time. Poor boy, he got big ears, too, just like the Johnsons. Sister Nellie’s daddy always said the Johnsons were so mean, cheap, and stingy they’d steal the grit from your teeth if you let ’em, that’s why the Lord give ’em big ears. She wondered who he could be. Didn’t recollect seeing him in these parts before.

  “Hey, chile, I’m Sister Nellie, and you look mighty familiar, but for the life of me I can’t quite place your face. You stay round here, and if you do, where? You got people in these parts, and if so, who? You saved, boy? Have you met the Lord? Do you go to church around here, and if you do, where? I declare, I must know you, ’cause I knows everybody. Well, speak up, son, I can’t hear you.”

  The poor boy was so dumbfounded that all he could do was stand there and stare at her. He didn’t know that anybody that old could talk that fast. “I beg your pardon, were you talking to me?” he asked.

  “’Course I’m talking to you. Ain’t but two of us here, and I sure wasn’t talking to them dried-up tomatoes. I ain’t gone crazy yet, no matter what them other folks say. Now, you heard me, I want to know who you are, and I don’t plan to keep repeating myself, and kindly refer to me as ‘ma’am’ or ‘Sister Nellie.’ Ain’t you got no respect for old folks?”

  “I got plenty of respect for old folks. It’s just that I didn’t consider you to be old.”

  Oh, he was a charming devil, Sister Nellie thought. Maybe he was related to the Colemans. Everybody knew that any one of them Coleman boys could charm the underpants off a nun if he had a mind to.

  “Sister Nellie, you just caught me by surprise. I’m here from New York, where my mama and I had been living since I was born, but I’ve got family here somewhere, and that’s why I came. My mama died seven months ago, and she told me a little, but not much, of her growing up here. I’m trying to track down as many relatives as I can before I have to get back to school in the fall. That doesn’t leave me much time — maybe six weeks.”

  “Six weeks! Boy, I could find your family back in Africa by then. What was your mama’s name? Who was her daddy? Where did she live, and why did she leave? I got to know all that before I can help you, and it’s my Christian duty to help you, so that’s just what I aim to do.”

  “Well, now, Sister Nellie, I don’t expect that you can help me. I mean no disrespect, but this all happened a long time ago, and believe me, I know what I’m doing. I’m going down to the courthouse and search for all the appropriate documents, and then I’m off to the Hall of Records. I took a special family-history course just so I’d be prepared. So, Sister Nellie, I can’t expect you to tell me too much with us just standing here.”

  “Well, I can tell you not to buy those tomatoes, ’cause Sister Rosa ain’t growed a decent vegetable in fifty years, and I can tell you that you coming home with me so I can fix you a decent meal, ’cause you New York folks don’t know spit about cooking good country food. After that, you going to tell me what you know, and I’m going to surprise you by telling you how much I already know. Now get your bag, you coming with me, and if you need tomatoes, get ’em in the can.” Sister Nellie picked up her bag and hollered, “Brother Jimmy, we leaving now, I’ll see you next week.” Then she slipped a brand-new ten-dollar bill on the counter and told the young’un to move it along ’cause it was time to go. Well, what else could he do? She hadn’t given him much of a choice, so he paid for the tomatoes and off he went, too.

  The kitchen was sort of like Sister Nellie herself — very, very open, a little too warm, and way too country — but he was hungry, so he figured he’d stay.

  “You got a name, boy? I would hate to call you ‘hey you!’ I don’t know what you all do up in New York, but it sure ain’t the way I was raised.” Sister Nellie moved fast, too, he noticed. She’d already put away half the groceries, and he hadn’t quite made it to the chair to sit down. He noticed that she’d already put a pot of water on to boil. He was in the South now, and he wondered if he shouldn’t offer to help. No; on second thought, he’d best just sit.

  “Name’s Louis, ma’am.”

  “Got a last name to go with that?”

  “Yes, ma’am — Washington, as in Booker T.”

  “Well, if you can’t claim some relation to him, I’d keep that wit to myself, ’lessen you was trying to figure out if I knew who he was. If that be the case, you ain’t got to wonder no further. I never met the man, but I know who he is. We do get books down here in the country, leastways every once in a while. Now, was Washington your mama’s name or your daddy’s?”

  “It’s my mama’s name. I don’t know anything about my daddy, ma’am. All I know is my mama left him here when she came north. I don’t even have a name to go by, and when I looked at my birth certificate, she conveniently left the space for ‘father’ blank. On all of her important papers she didn’t even name a next of kin, but in the spot that calls for who to contact in an emergency, she put the name Elsie Smith from somewhere down here. I’ve already asked around, but nobody here knows her. That’s really all I got, but I’m smart. I’ll find out, even if it takes a couple trips and many, many years.”

  “Elsie Smith — I don’t recollect. Where you staying, by the way, while you doin’ all this lookin’?”

  “With a friend of mine from New York who has family about twenty miles out in Winterville. I got him to drop me off here in Farmville so I could look around. He’ll be back for me about eight.” He looked at the pot on the stove. The water should be boiling soon. He wondered what she was making. He was really hungry now.

  “You got a picture of your mama, boy?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He pulled out his wallet and handed a worn little picture to Sister Nellie. It was in pretty sad shape, but she could make out the face, all right, and Lord have mercy, she knew just who it was. She’d recognize the child anywhere, only this wasn’t a child Nellie was looking at, but a mature lady. Sister Nellie wondered if her spirit had grown up like her body had obviously done. She’d like to think that somewhere along the way she’d become a real woman, at least woman enough to make a decent life for herself and this child.

  She looked at the young man in front of her and smiled. She handed the picture back to him and mum
bled a few words about what a fine-looking woman his mama was. Why hadn’t she seen it all before? The boy looked just like him — Mister Henry’s son. She closed her eyes. All of a sudden her insides hurt. What now? She ain’t never been one to run from anything broke if she could fix it, or from a job to be done if she could finish it. But the Lord had taken this out of her hands. It wasn’t her place to say a thing. There really was only one thing to do — step gracefully out of the way.

  “Excuse me one minute, son. I got to go back to make a phone call. I’ll just be lickety-split.” Sister Nellie wondered if he had seen in her face that she knew something she couldn’t say. Her daddy was always saying her eyes couldn’t hide a thing. But the Lord had spoken; this just wasn’t hers, and she would be respectful and stay in her rightful place.

  She made her call and came back quietly in the room, so quietly he didn’t even hear her return. He wondered what was happening. What had she seen in that picture that had been too much to share? Maybe if he was patient and gave her a moment, she’d tell him what he desperately needed to know.

  “Anything wrong, ma’am?”

  Wrong? Oh, it was all so wrong, baby, she silently thought. You probably the only right thing come out of it. She remembered everything — after all, it hadn’t really been that long ago, maybe sixteen or seventeen years ago that Rosa had taken that girl into her home when she had nowhere else to go. Gave her a mama when she needed one most, and loved her like she was one of her own. And what did Rosa get for all that? Nothin’ but hurt. Came in from the cornfields early one day and found that child and Mister Henry in the barn spread ’cross the hay, lovin’ each other as bold as you please. Rosa threw her right out the door, and shortly thereafter, she threw Mister Henry out, too. It took him two years, but Mister Henry finally wormed his way back into Rosa’s good graces and then back into their home. They seemed to have found their way back to each other by the time he died ten years later. Anything wrong? Lord, son, more than you know, but I’ve already called Rosa, and angel that she is, she told me to bring you on over. This was Rosa’s own now — if not by blood, then by an unspoken and inherited responsibility. Rosa would do right; she always did.

  “Ain’t nothing wrong, son. I called a friend of mine who may be able to help you out, that’s all. I told you a little bit ’bout her back there in Mister Jimmy’s store. She said to bring you right over, so we got to head out once again. Now pick up your tongue, boy, she did say something ’bout dinner. Gumbo, I do believe.”

  Sister Nellie climbed up on the counter, opened the top cabinet, and started looking. Frightened that she might fall, Louis begged her to get down.

  “Hush, child, I ain’t that feeble, that old, or that unsteady. I been climbin’ this counter thirty years, and I ain’t fell yet. Here we go. They right here, I thought I had some,” she said, and handed him three cans. “You hold on to the vegetables. If we going to Rosa’s, we gonna need ’em. She sure is sweet, but she and vegetables just ain’t on one accord.”

  Minutes later, Sister Nellie and Louis were on their way. She looked at him again. He really was a fine young man. She hoped he’d find all he was looking for and then some. “Well, Nellie girl,” she whispered to herself, “you done stirred up the stuff, let’s just hope it don’t stink.”

  “You say something, Sister Nellie, ma’am?”

  “Not a thing, boy, not one blessed thing.”

  AFTERTHOUGHTS

  Whenever I tell stories about mamas, I always remind folks, in my own poetic way, exactly who it is that I’m talking about. After all, in the African American community there aren’t just mothers, there are also mamas. Mothers raise their own children. Mamas, on the other hand, raise everybody’s children. So I rarely tell stories about mothers, but I sure love to tell stories about mamas. They are a part of a cultural tradition of loving that should never be forgotten. Lord, how I love my mamas!

  The aunties, the sisters, the grannies and the nannies,

  the missus, the mamas, the madams, and the mammies,

  the bloodmothers, the other mothers, and the ones we called ma’dear.

  All those ladies who lived in grace

  with their spitfire spirits and souls of sweet lace,

  who could saunter down Decent Street, still swing their hips,

  dab a drop of Vaseline, and shine their lips,

  and when they rouged their cheeks of sweet honey brown

  they shimmered like a rainbow ’cross a muddied ground.

  They never knew that they made all the difference in a cold cruel world,

  with their hot-combed locks and paper-bag curls… .

  But Lord bless ’em and keep ’em, every last one of ’em

  ’cause without them where would we be?

  I think that of all the stories in this book and the multitude of folks presented here, my favorite story to write was “A Homegrown Angel” and my favorite character to create was Sister Nellie. I took her right out of that legacy of women who knew that being a mama could take you to the schoolhouse, the courthouse, or even the jailhouse. You could leave out the front door and not even know where you were headed, only that you had to go on. As long as there was one child suffering, there was room on your lap, a place in your heart, and some more mothering to do. All of those timeless beauties with their now-wrinkled cheeks and withering wombs who in all of their wisdom still knew how to love and taught the world how to mother — what a wonderful legacy they have left to each and every one of us.

  I have succeeded in becoming a mother — the birthing of my four children took care of that — but I am constantly striving to remember also to be a mama. Maybe that’s why I became a storyteller: I believed it would allow me to touch children in a very special way. When I tell them a story, it’s like grabbing hold of them, pulling them right into my lap, and wrapping my arms around them. For just a little while, all can be right with the world, and I can take them to special places where folks still love one another and a dream can still come true. Unfortunately, the story has to end, and that group of children ultimately must move on, but the blessing is that there is always another group coming along that will also need a mama. When they do, I’ll be ready for them.

  God bless Sister Nellie, with her homemade loving and wonderful homegrown wisdom. Yes, Lord, bless and protect the Sister Nellies everywhere. Amen.

  Gettin’ Ready

  If Emma Jean James had bothered to take a real good look at all that the full-length mirror was flashin’ back at her, instead of tryin’ so hard to reach on round to pat herself squarely on the back, she would have realized quick that she looked ’bout silly as silly could be. But Emma Jean James wasn’t payin’ no mind to the sinfully snug blouse, the too-tight tan skirt, or the shoes that looked to be at least two sizes too small. If Miz Nellie had been there, she sho’ ’nough would have told her that it was just plain foolish to try to shove ten pounds of lard into a five-pound bag. But Miz Nellie was nowhere to be seen, so the only thing Emma Jean had to think on was how special she was ’cause she was the very first colored to work for the First Farm Insurance Company.

  True, Old Man Hess had been given a position at the company sometime last year, but he’d died ’fore he could even get started good — so that didn’t count. Emma Jean James, though, was young and ready to go. She had sat through the entire two-week training course and received her very own clipboard just yesterday. Why, Emma Jean had an even better job than that know-it-all Catherine Cook, who had gone clear to Greensboro and gotten to go to college for almost two years. Now look at Catherine — Emma Jean thought — doin’ nothin’ more than slavin’ in her mama’s kitchen, up to her elbows in flour and grease, bakin’ bread that went for a dime a loaf or a penny per slice. Emma Jean James wouldn’t be caught doin’ nothin’ like that there. No way; only the best would do, and now she was an agent for the First Farm Insurance Agency.

  The first house on the list was Miz Lowe’s. She owed two dollars on her burial policy, and sh
e had to pay today or be cut off. She had been payin’ kinda regular — ’least up to last month. The company might not have known it, but Emma Jean suspected Miz Lowe was havin’ a bit of hardship ’cause she had taken sick last month, and had to go twice to see Doc Walker. He charged at least a dollar a visit. Emma Jean knew ’cause he had taken care of her recently when she split up her big toe.

  “Watch out for that Miz Lowe,” Mister Brown at the insurance company had warned. “She’ll pull out that Bible in a minute, and by the time she’s through preachin’ and prayin’, she done bought her a whole ’nother month free of charge. She’s a sly one, that Miz Lowe,” he said, “but sly or no, I know you’ll be able to handle her just fine — yes, I reckon you’ll be just fine.” And she would be, too. Didn’t her mama always tell her that she was the smartest of all her kids? Mister Brown would be at the office today at five o’clock sharp to get her report and pick up the collection. She only had a few houses today, so that would give her plenty of time to do what she needed to do.

  Miz Lowe’s house was on the corner of First and Bell End. It was in pretty sad shape, too, now that Mister Lowe was gone. He’d been dead for a while now, burned up in that factory on Castle Hill what used to make them pretty candles. Yeah, this was the right place, but how was she supposed to get up all these steps? These here were rotted clear through the middle, though they seemed sturdy enough on the outer edges. Normally she would have just spread her legs the width of the steps and climbed her way up real careful-like, but today, in this skirt, that wasn’t even a possibility. Emma Jean looked on around her — there was nobody in sight, nobody who would see, so it would be all right. She lifted her leg, held on to the rail, and hopped herself clear on up to Miz Lowe’s front door.

  It took a good deal of knocking to summon Miz Lowe, but Emma Jean knew she was in there, and she wasn’t ’bout to give up easy. Miz Lowe looked out and gave a raggedy li’l smile. Emma Jean remembered how she used to have two gold teeth where her front ones were supposed to be, but when the hard times hit, she’d knocked ’em out and sold ’em just to keep herself going. Didn’t even go to Doc Walker so he could pull ’em proper — just went to Mister Bell’s shop with her mouth still bloody and asked him straight out what she could get for ’em.