by Maya Angelou
He sorted and counted the linen when the laundry truck picked it up and returned it, then grudgingly handed out fresh sheets to the roomers. He cooked massive and delicious dinners when Mother was busy, and he sat in the tall-ceilinged kitchen drinking coffee by the pots.
Papa Ford loved my mother (as did nearly everyone) with a childlike devotion. He went so far as to control his profanity when she was around, knowing she couldn’t abide cursing unless she was the curser.
“Why the sheeit do you want to work in a goddam kitchen?”
“Papa, the job pays seventy-five dollars a week.”
“Busting some goddam suds.” Disgust wrinkled his face.
“Papa, I’ll be cooking and not washing dishes.”
“Colored women been cooking so long, thought you’d be tired of it by now.”
“If you’ll just tell me—”
“Got all that education. How come you don’t get a goddam job where you can go to work looking like something?”
I tried another tack. “I probably couldn’t learn to cook Creole food, anyway. It’s too complicated.”
“Sheeit. Ain’t nothing but onions, green peppers and garlic. Put that in everything and you got Creole food. You know how to cook rice, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I could cook it till each grain stood separately.
“That’s all, then. Them geechees can’t live without swamp seed.” He cackled at his joke, then recalled a frown. “Still don’t like you working as a goddam cook. Get married, then you don’t have to cook for nobody but your own family. Sheeit.”
CHAPTER 4
The Creole Café steamed with onion vapor, garlic mists, tomato fogs and green-pepper sprays. I cooked and sweated among the cloying odors and loved being there. Finally I had the authority I had always longed for. Mrs. Dupree chose the daily menu, and left a note on the steam table informing me of her gastronomic decisions. But, I, Rita, the chef, decided how much garlic went into the baked short ribs à la Creole, how many bay leaves would flavor the steamed Shreveport tripe. For over a month I was embroiled in the mysteries of the kitchen with the expectancy of an alchemist about to discover the secret properties of gold.
A leathered old white woman, whom Mother found, took care of my baby while I worked. I had been rather reluctant to leave him in her charge, but Mother reminded me that she tended her white, black and Filipino children equally well. I reasoned that her great age had shoved her beyond the pale of any racial differences. Certainly anyone who lived that long had to spend any unused moments thinking about death and the life to come. She simply couldn’t afford the precious time to think of prejudices. The greatest compensation for youth’s illness is the utter ignorance of the seriousness of the affliction.
Only after the mystery was worn down to a layer of commonness did I begin to notice the customers. They consisted largely of light-skinned, slick-haired Creoles from Louisiana, who spoke a French patois only a little less complicated than the contents of my pots and equally spicy. I thought it fitting and not at all unusual that they enjoyed my cooking. I was following Papa Ford’s instructions loosely and adding artistic touches of my own.
Our customers never ate, paid and left. They sat on the long backless stools and exchanged gossip or shared the patient philosophy of the black South.
“Take it easy, Greasy, you got a long way to slide.”
With the tolerance of ages they gave and accepted advice.
“Take it easy, but take it.”
One large ruddy man, whose name I never knew, allowed his elbows to support him at the twelve-stool counter, and told tales of the San Francisco waterfront: “They got wharf rats who fight a man flat-footed.”
“No?” A voice wanted to believe.
“Saw one of those suckers the other night backed a cracker up ’gainst a cargo crate. Hadn’t been for me and two other guys, colored guys”—naturally—“he’d of run down his throat and walked on his liver.”
Near the steam counter, the soft sounds of black talk, the sharp reports of laughter, and the shuffling feet on tiled floors mixed themselves in odorous vapors and I was content.
CHAPTER 5
I had rented a room (with cooking privileges) in a tall, imposing San Francisco Victorian and had bought my first furniture and a white chenille bedspread. God, but it looked like a field of tiny snow roses. I had a beautiful child, who laughed to see me, a job that I did well, a baby-sitter whom I trusted, and I was young and crazy as a road lizard. Surely this was making it.
One foggy evening on my day off, I had picked up my son and was carrying him home along the familiar streets with the casual ease of an old mother. He snoozed in the angle of my arm, and I thought of dinner, and the radio and a night of reading. Two ex-schoolmates came up the hill toward me. They were of that rare breed, black born San Franciscans. I, cushioned in my maturity, didn’t think to further arm myself. I had the arrowproof vest of adult confidence, so I let them approach—easy.
“Let us look at the baby … I hear he’s cute.” She was fat with small covetous eyes and was known for having a tiny but pugnacious wit. Her friend, Lily, even as a teen-ager, was old beyond knowing and bored beyond wisdom.
“Yes. They say you made a pretty baby.”
I lifted the flap of light blanket from my son’s face and shifted myself so that they might see my glory.
“My God, you did that?” The fat one’s face broke open into a wounded grin.
Her somber friend intoned, “Jesus, he looks like he’s white. He could pass.” Her words floated into my air on admiration and wonder. I shriveled that she could say such a terrible thing about my baby, but I had no nerve to cover my prize and walk away. I stood dumbfounded, founded in dumbness.
The short one laughed a crackly laugh and pushed the point between my ribs. “He’s got a little nose and thin lips.” Her surprise was maddening. “As long as you live and troubles rise, you ought to pay the man for giving you that baby, huh. A crow gives birth to a dove. The bird kingdom must be petrified.”
There’s a point in fury when one becomes abject. Motionless. I froze, as Lot’s wife must have done, having caught a last glimpse of concentrated evil.
“And what did you name him? ‘Thank God A-mighty’?”
I could have laid him down there, bunting and all, and left him for someone who had more grace, more style and beauty. My own pride of control would not allow me to show the girls what I was feeling, so I covered my baby and headed home. No good-byes—I left them as if I were planning to walk off the edge of the world. In my room I lay my five months of belongingness on the chenilled bed and sat beside him to look over his perfection. His little head was exactly round and the soft hair curled up in black ripples. His arms and legs were plump marvels, and his torso as straight as a look between lovers. But it was his face with which I had to do.
Admittedly, the lips were thin and traced themselves sparely under a small nose. But he was a baby, and as he grew, these abnormalities would flesh out, become real, imitate the regularity of my features. His eyes, even closed, slanted up toward his throbbing temples. He looked like a baby Buddha. And then I examined his hairline. It followed mine in every detail. And that would not grow away or change, and it proved that he was undeniably mine.
CHAPTER 6
Butter-colored, honey-brown, lemon- and olive-skinned. Chocolate and plum-blue, peaches-and-cream. Cream. Nutmeg. Cinnamon. I wondered why my people described our colors in terms of something good to eat. Then God’s prettiest man became a customer at my restaurant.
He sat beside the light-skinned Creoles, and they thinned and paled and disappeared. His dark-brown skin glistened, and the reflected light made it hard to look into my mysterious pots. His voice to the waitress was a thumb poking in my armpits. I hated his being there because his presence made me jittery, but I loathed his leaving and could hardly bear waiting for him to return.
The waitress and Mrs. Dupree called him “Curly,” but I thought whoever named
him little used their imagination. When he opened the steamy door to the restaurant, surely it was the second coming of Christ.
His table manners pleased me. He ate daintily and slowly as if he cared what he put in his mouth. He smiled at me, but the nervous grimaces I gave him in return couldn’t even loosely be called smiles. He was friendly with the customers, the waitress and me, since he always came alone. I wondered why he didn’t have girl friends. Any woman would give a pretty to go out with him or rush to sit and talk to him. I never thought he would find me interesting, and if he did, it would be just to tease me.
“Reet.” There it was. I acted as if I hadn’t heard him.
“Reet. You hear me. Come here.”
I have seen bitch dogs in heat sidle sinuously along the ground, tempting, luring. I would like to be able to say I went to him so naturally. Unfortunately not. I draped myself in studied indifference and inched out my voice in disdainful measures.
“Were you speaking to me?”
“Come here, I won’t bite.” Looking down upon his request, I conceded. If he was beautiful from a distance, up close he was perfection. His eyes were deep-black and slow-lidded. His upper lip arched and fell over white teeth held together in the middle by the merest hint of yellow gold.
“How long you been knowing to cook like that?”
“All my life.” I could hardly make the lie leave my tongue.
“You married?”
“No.”
“You be careful, somebody’s gonna come here and kidnap you.”
“Thank you.” Why didn’t he? Of course he would have had to knock me down, bind and gag me, but I would have liked nothing better.
“You want a soda?”
“No thanks.” I turned and went back to the steam table, sweat nibbling above my top lip and under my arms. I wished him away but could feel his gaze on my back. I had spent so many years being people other than myself that I continued to stir and mix, raise and lower burners as if every nerve in my body were not attached to the third stool of the lunch counter.
The door opened and closed and I turned to watch his retreating back, only to find that another customer had left. Automatically I looked for him and met his eyes, solemn on me. I burned at giving myself away.
He nodded me over.
“What time you get off?”
“One o’clock.”
“Want me to take you home?”
“I usually go out to see my baby.”
“You’ve got a baby? Somebody must of give it to you for Christmas. A doll baby. How old are you?”
“Nineteen.” Sometimes I was twenty, or eighteen. It depended on my mood.
“Nineteen going on seventeen.” His smile held no ridicule. Just a smidgen of indulgence.
“Okay. I’ll take you to see your baby.”
—
He drove his 1941 Pontiac without seeming to think about it. I sat in the corner pushed against the door trying desperately not to watch him.
“Where’s the baby’s Daddy?”
“I don’t know.”
“He wouldn’t marry you, huh?” His voice hardened in the question.
“I didn’t want to marry him.” Partly true.
“Well, he’s a low-down bastard in my book and needs his ass kicked.” I began to love him at that moment.
I shifted to look at him. My avenging angel. Mother and my brother had been so busy being positive and supportive, neither had given any thought to the possibility that I might want revenge. I don’t think I had even thought about it before. Now anger was an injection that flooded my body, making me warm and excited.
That’s true, he was a low-life bastard. He should have given me a chance to refuse his proposal. Out of my head and into forgetfulness went the memory that I had wilfully initiated my one sexual tryst. My personal reasons and aggressive tactics were conveniently obliterated. Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.
Curly stood in the center of the baby-sitter’s living room and said all the mother-liking things: “Sure is a fine baby … Looks just like you … He’s gonna be a big one … Check those feet.”
Back in the car it never occurred to me to put up resistance when he said we were going to his hotel. I wanted to do what he wanted, so I sat quiet.
As we passed through the hotel lobby, I felt the first stirring of reluctance. Now, wait a minute. What was I doing here? What did he think I was? He hadn’t even said he loved me. Where was the soft music that should be playing as he kissed my ear lobe?
He sensed the hesitation and took my hand to guide me down the carpeted hallway. His touch and confidence rushed my doubts. Obviously I couldn’t stop now.
“Make yourself comfortable.”
He removed his coat and I sat quickly in the one large chair. On the dresser, amid cards and toiletries, stood a bottle of whiskey.
“May I have a drink?” I had never drunk anything stronger than Dubonnet.
“No. I don’t think so. But I’ll have one.” He poured the liquor into a glass he took down from above the face bowl. Water sloshed around and he gulped it down. Then in a moment he stood over me. I wanted to look up at him but my head refused.
“Come here, Reet. Get up.” I wanted to, but my muscles had atrophied. I didn’t want him to think of me as a dick teaser. A cheat. But my body wouldn’t obey.
He bent and took both hands and pulled me upright. He enclosed me in his arms.
“You nearly ’bout as tall as me. I like tall girls.” Then he kissed me, softly. And slowly. When he stopped, my body had gone its own way. My heart raced and my knees were locked. I was embarrassed at my trembling.
“Come over to the bed.” He patiently pulled me away from the chair.
We both sat on the bed and I could hardly see him, although he was a breath away. He held my face in his large dark hands.
“I know you’re scared. That’s natural. You’re young. But we’re going to have a party. Just think of it like that. We’re having a love party.”
My previous brushes with sex had been just that. Brushes. One violent. The other indifferent, and now I found myself in the hands and arms of a tender man.
He stroked and talked. He kissed me until my ears rang, and he made me laugh. He interrupted his passion to make some small joke, and the second I responded he resumed lovemaking.
I lay crying in his arms, after.
“You happy?” The gold in his mouth glinted like a little star.
I was so happy that the next day I went to a jewelers and bought him an onyx ring with a diamond chip. I charged it to my stepfather’s account.
CHAPTER 7
Love was what I had been waiting for. I had done grown-up things out of childish ignorance or juvenile bravado, but now I began to mature. I became pleased with my body because it gave me such pleasure. I shopped for myself carefully for the first time. Searching painstakingly for just the right clothes instead of buying the first thing off the rack. Unfortunately my taste was as new as my interest. Once when Curly was to take me out to dinner, I bought a smart yellow crepe dress with black roses, black baby-doll shoes, whose straps sank a full inch into my ankles, and an unflattering wide coolie hat with veil. I pinned a small cluster of yellow rose buds on my bosom and was ready for the fray.
He only asked me to remove the corsage.
Curly had said at the beginning of our affair that he had a girl who worked in a San Diego shipyard and her job would be up soon. Then they’d go back to New Orleans and get married. I hastily stored the information in that inaccessible region of the mind where one puts the memory of pain and other unpleasantries. For the while it needn’t bother me, and it didn’t.
He was getting out of the Navy and only had a couple of months before all his papers would be cleared. Southern upbringing and the terror of war made him seem much older than his thirty-one years.
We took my son for long walks through parks; when people co
mplimented us on our child, he played the proud papa and accepted. At playland on the beach we rode the Ferris wheel and loop-the-loop and gooed ourselves with salt-water taffy. Late afternoons we took the baby back to the sitter and then went to his hotel and one more, or two more, or three more love parties. I never wanted it to end. I bought things for him. A watch (he already had one), a sports coat (too small), another ring, and paid for them myself. I couldn’t hear his protestations. I wasn’t buying things. I was buying time.
One day after work he took me to the sitter’s. He sat and held the baby. His silence should have told me something. Maybe it did, but again I didn’t want to know. We left in a quiet mood. He only said, “I want me a boy like that. Just like that.”
Since we weren’t heading for the hotel, I asked where we were going.
“I’m taking you to your house.”
“Why?”
No answer.
He found a parking space a half-block away. The streetlights were just coming on and a soft fog dimmed the world. He reached in the back seat and took out two large boxes. He handed them to me and said, “Give me a kiss.”
I tried to laugh, to pretend that the kiss was payment for the gifts, but the laugh lied. He kissed me lightly and looked at me long.
“Reet. My girl friend is here and I’ll be checking out of the hotel tonight.”
I didn’t cry because I couldn’t think.
“You’re going to make some man a wonderful wife. I mean it. These things are for you and the baby. I hate to say good-bye, but I gotta.”
He probably said more, but all I remember is walking from the car to my front door. Trying for my life’s sake to control the angry lurchings of my stomach. Trying to walk upright carrying the awkward boxes. I had to set down the boxes to find the door key, and habit fitted it into the lock. I entered the hall without hearing him start the car.