by Maya Angelou
CHAPTER 13
Los Angeles, seen through my lover’s eyes, was more colorful than I had realized, more variegated. He saw Watts as a community of great interest. After he observed many black families trying to restore their neat neighborhoods, he said, “But these people are fastidious.”
I was surprised at his surprise. He explained, “Until recently in Africa all we saw of American Negroes was Rochester with Jack Benny, and Stepnfetchit, and athletes like Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson. I haven’t seen it, but I understand Harlem is a hellhole.”
“Harlem is beautiful.”
In every conversation with him, I put on my armor of defense, whether I needed it or not, and whether or not my point of view was defensible.
“There are a few ugly places,” I admitted, “but there are many ugly places in Africa.”
We visited black-owned bookstores that featured books by blacks and about blacks.
He bought out entire shelves’ worth and asked me to pay. The money was his, but he asked me to carry it, saying that he could not understand paper money without a black man’s face on it.
I sidestepped a full-out argument by not reminding him that the Ghanaian pound, with Kwame Nkrumah’s face on it, was only ten years old.
I was in a labyrinth, going somewhere without knowing my destination or even when I might arrive. I still loved him and wanted him, but there were parts of his life I could not even begin to fathom.
Sometimes, when I answered my telephone, a woman’s voice would ask for him. She was calling from New York.
My lover explained, “She is a very old black lady, and she was helpful to me when I stopped at the United Nations.”
Her voice didn’t sound old, and he laughed with her on the telephone as if she were a girl.
“Her name is Dolly McPherson, and she is a very powerful old woman. She is an official at the Institute of International Education.”
Our final argument came unexpectedly over Doris Day and Rock Hudson. We had gone to a movie in which they starred. He was totally silent as I drove home. He didn’t speak when we got out of the car or when we entered the house. He was pouting. I didn’t know why, and I was certainly not going to ask. I hated the torture of the silent treatment that he used when he was displeased.
I went straight to the kitchen and began warming the food I had cooked earlier. When the table was set with my good china and dinner placed on my best tablecloth, I went into the living room, where he sat like a Yoruba carving.
“Dinner is ready.”
He looked up at me, his eyes glinting and his face in a monumental scowl.
“Why can’t we be like them?”
“Like whom?”
“Those two actors in the film.”
“Doris Day and Rock Hudson?”
“I don’t know their names, but why can’t we be to each other the way they are?”
“Are you serious?”
“Do you think I am playing?”
“Those are actors. They are not real. I mean, the roles are just roles. You know that.”
He had graduated from England’s top university with the highest academic degree and he was one of the most educated persons I had ever known. He was being perverse.
Perversity is contagious. I asked, “You want me to become a perky little blond woman? Is that what you want? You have little chance of getting that from me.”
He said, “You American Negroes. I never know if you are just stupid or merely pretending.” He looked at me pityingly.
Cursing has never been one of my strong suits, but I gathered a few sordid words and started throwing them around. The louder I became, the more scornful his look, and the louder I became.
I picked up my car keys and my purse and went into the kitchen. I took the corners of the tablecloth and let the food and plates and silverware and glasses fall down in the center. I dragged the whole thing to the living room.
“Here’s dinner if you want it. I’m leaving.”
Anger and frustration rode with me all the way to Nichelle’s house.
“Well, Maya, you’re always welcome to stay here, but you know how I feel about your marriage.”
We weren’t married. In Ghana we had done a little homemade ritual in the presence of a few friends. There had been no public ceremony, no authority to sanction our being together, no license assuring us of society’s agreement. We had said some words, made some promises and poured schnapps on the ground.
I called my mother in San Francisco, who said that Bailey was visiting. I spoke to my brother and told him of my predicament. He listened and said that they would both be in Los Angeles the next day. I told them that I was spending the night with Nichelle and gave them the phone number and address.
They arrived at Nichelle’s house in the morning in a rental car and I filled them in over coffee. I mentioned the African’s cold treatment and how it drove me mad. They both understood. I said nothing about the curse words.
Mom said, “Well, let’s go over and meet this man who wants to take you back to Africa.”
Bailey rode in my car. He had been my closest and dearest friend all my life. “My, how is it? What do you want?”
“I want him to go back to Africa. He brings no peace, and I can’t seem to manufacture any while he is around. He should go.”
Bailey said, “Then he will go, and go today. Somewhere.”
My brother was black and beauteous. He had given me my name, protected me, educated me and told me when I was twelve that I was smart. He had added that I was not as smart as he was, but I was smarter than almost everyone else. He was, at his tallest, five feet four inches tall.
The African had showered and changed, but the soiled tablecloth remained on the floor.
He shook hands with Bailey and embraced my mother.
Mother looked at the litter on the floor and turned to me.
“I left it here last night.”
Mother said, “Aha.”
I nodded to Bailey. He helped me carry the sour-smelling bundle back to the kitchen. Mother sat down, and as Bailey and I left the room, I heard her say, “Now, what’s going on between you and my baby?”
Bailey asked me, “Where are his clothes? Does he have enough money to leave?” I pointed to a closet and told him that the African had plenty of money. I added, “He said he had brought a lot because he was going to carry me back to Africa.”
Bailey said, “The hell. Did he think he had to pay a bride-price?”
That was my brother. He could make me laugh even in the grimmest situations.
“He’s been talking about going to Mexico City. Kwesi Brew is Ghana’s ambassador to Mexico, and Kwesi and his wife, Molly, love him. They dote on him.”
Bailey said, “From what I see, he can take a lot of doting.”
He watched as I cleared up the mess. “You are really your mother’s daughter. He doesn’t know he is lucky that you didn’t dump that dinner on his head.”
I told him that if I had done that, I thought the African would have hit me.
Bailey responded instantly, “He’d have only one time to do that. Next time he’d draw back a stub. Let’s go see what your mother is doing.”
My little mother sat in the one upholstered chair as primly as an old-fashioned schoolteacher. Her legs were crossed at the ankles. Her purse and gloves lay in her lap.
“Well, baby, this gentleman has reported you to me. He said you used profanity last night.”
The African blurted out, “She used words I never even heard Negro sailors use when their ships docked in Ghana’s port city of Tema. Her mouth should be washed out. You should do that.”
Mother said, “Oh, I would never do a thing like that. Never. People use profanity because they have limited vocabularies or because they are lazy or too frustrated to search for the words they want. My daughter has an extensive vocabulary and doesn’t have a lazy bone in her body. So she cursed out of frustration. Why were you frustrated, baby?”
Bailey spoke before I could answer. “Excuse me, Mom, but I’d like to speak to him.” He turned to the African. “Would you come with me for a walk around the block?”
The African assented. When they were both on the steps, Bailey stuck his head back in the door.
“Pack his clothes.”
Mother watched as I folded the flamboyant African robes into a trunk.
“Your brother said you didn’t sound right on the telephone. That’s why we are here.”
“I wasn’t right. I won’t deny I was happy to see him, but I can’t stand his rudeness in my face all the time.”
“Wasn’t he rude in Africa?” Although it was ten A.M., she was making herself a Scotch. She had told me years earlier that the time to drink was when you wanted it and could afford to buy it for yourself.
“It wasn’t so bad there. First he had his business to focus his attention. He had his children, and I had my own house. And here he’s only got me. So since he can’t stand anyone around me, I’ve become the whipping boy.”
Mother sucked her teeth loudly. “Well, you sure as hell weren’t raised to be that for anybody. But it’s all right. Your brother will take care of it.”
The two men walked back into the house laughing uproariously and patting each other on the back.
“I want you to come to Africa yourself, Bailey, see how we live, eh.”
Bailey said, “You bet. I’ll probably be there before Maya gets back.” He noticed my suitcase on the floor. He asked, “Oh, you’ve been packing?”
I said, “Yes, this is mine. I’m going back up to San Francisco with you and Mom.” I wanted to save my lover’s face. “I packed for him, too.” I pointed to the luggage in the corner. “He’s been talking to friends in Mexico City.”
The African said, “That’s where I’m going, and I’m going today. I will telephone Kwesi Brew. He will meet me.”
I offered to make breakfast. Bailey shook his head. “I’m taking him to a great breakfast place in Venice. You need to make reservations for one from Los Angeles to Mexico City.” Bailey and Mother went into the kitchen so my lover and I could have privacy. We embraced emotionally.
“You could come with me …”
I was already missing him. I said, “Not now, later. But why did you decide so suddenly to go?”
“Your brother. He talked to me, man to man. There seems to be something in my personality that rubs you the wrong way, and I may threaten, or at least weaken, your decision to return to me and Africa. So, at his suggestion, I am leaving you some space. He really loves you. You are lucky. But he understands me, and that’s more important. He has retained more of the African spirit than you or your mother.”
I could have kicked him. He was doing the very thing that had run me away from him in Africa. He so routinely disparaged other people’s importance that he didn’t notice he was degrading me.
“You can come to Mexico or I’ll come back here. I mean to take you back.”
Bailey said he would telephone about the reservation. I wished my love a safe journey and asked to be remembered to Kwesi and Molly Brew.
He was gone.
—
Bailey and Mother left that same day, but not before ragging me about the inane predicament I had created for myself.
“It’s time for the troubleshooters to move on. You must not think you can call out the troops at each rumor of war.”
I didn’t call them to come. Or perhaps I did. Desperation may have been in my voice, must have been there, but I did not ask outright that they come to Los Angeles to rescue me. I was a woman, not a child. My name was spelled double-you oh em a en.
No, I didn’t ask, but I was extremely glad they had come.
CHAPTER 14
Despite acres of ravaged city blocks and hulks of burned-out cars, Los Angeles seemed to have settled back into a satisfied-with-itself air. The cauldron still simmered in a few quarters, but the energy was spent and it would not boil over again anytime soon.
I had finished writing my play, and I asked Frank Silvera for advice. “Find a producer and give it to him. It will be his job to find the money, the theater, a director and a cast.”
I said to him that he had not had to use those tactics; he had done everything himself.
He reminded me that he was the owner, producer and director of Tee Oh Bee.
I searched diligently for a producer, but there was a dearth of them interested in a new play by an unknown playwright who also happened to be black and female. Few would even read the manuscript. Coming out of the shadow of the Watts revolt, they thought the plot would lean heavily on racial unrest.
My plot in “All Day Long,” admittedly slight, was based on one day in the life of a poor thirteen-year-old black boy who was relocated to the North. Among his many travails were the difficulty of understanding the Northern accent and comprehending how a sofa could secretly contain a bed larger than any he had ever seen.
In my play, the boy worked through his befuddlement at flushing toilets (where did it all go?), the mystery of a refrigerator that stayed cold without a block of ice in it and the gift of fresh water that came through hardened silver tubes. A slim idea, but I remembered my own stupefaction when Bailey and I returned to California as teenagers after ten years in the rural South. In Arkansas we had drawn water from a well, and for baths we had heated it on a wood-burning stove. We slept on mattresses stuffed with feathers from chickens we raised and killed and ate, and used a shack away from the house as a toilet.
So a foldout sofa and an indoor toilet had been miracles of modernity to me. I found no one interested enough to produce “All Day Long.”
Back to the library. I had to learn how to produce. All I discovered there was that producing meant having money, and most of the people I knew had very little; the few who were well-off weren’t interested in my play.
Kwame Nkrumah, the president of Ghana, was deposed while on a visit to China. It appeared that the time was out of joint, which meant that even if I wanted to return to Africa, Ghana was out of the question for me. I had been a devout Nkrumaist.
In just two years, Malcolm had been murdered and the Watts conflagration had left a roster of arrestees, hundreds homeless and many hurt. My once great love affair hadn’t worked out the second time, and now a person I had supported and admired was in exile from his country. I knew how Africans build their lives around their land, their families and friends. I wept for Kwame Nkrumah, for Ghana, for Africa, and some tears were for me.
CHAPTER 15
I sensed my friend Nichelle pulling away from me. I knew I was tenderhearted and a little paranoid, but I felt that she disapproved of me for sending the African away. I thought that she believed I was too hasty in letting go of the man who seemed to her to have been so desirable for me. He had status, intelligence, money and charisma. I might not do better than that anywhere.
Beah Richards was my neighbor, and we were friendly but never close friends. Professor M. J. Hewitt, a beautiful green-eyed friend with whom I was close, had found a great love and gone off to South America with him.
I noted the signs and determined that the time had come for me to be moving on.
My deliberations were focused on where to go. San Francisco didn’t beckon, Hawaii held nothing for me. I began to look at New York.
I telephoned Bailey, who had moved back from Hawaii to San Francisco. “Of course, go to New York. As long as you don’t get involved in the politics.”
Mother came to the phone and said, “That’s all right. But don’t forget you can always come home.”
A letter from the African’s elderly lady friend in New York helped me decide definitely that I should head back East. Dolly McPherson wrote:
Dear Miss Angelou,
I am going into the hospital for surgery. I’ll probably take a month to completely recover, but if you want to come to New York, I’ll try to help you get settled. Possibly I can help you find employment if you need it.
> Our African friend told me so much about you I can hardly wait to get to know you. If you’d like to send me your resume, I’ll be glad to look it over and see how I might be of help.
Yours,
Dolly McPherson
The friendliness in the letter made me bless the sweetness of old black women. I began to look forward to meeting her. I was sure she would invite me to her church. And of course I’d be glad to go.
I had started packing and deciding to whom I would give away household goods when Rosa Guy telephoned me from New York. She was my friend from the Harlem Writers Guild, and she had finished her book Bird at My Window. She wanted to come to California and promote it. I told her that if she could come soon, I would arrange a book signing and introduce her to bookstore owners. One week later Rosa arrived in Los Angeles wearing her New York air as casually as a well-worn cape that fitted her perfectly. She told me how all our New York City friends were faring, and the conversation made me think more about that hard and demanding and most glamorous city in the world.
Her novel of a dysfunctional relationship between a mother and son was gripping and sold well at the black-owned Aquarian bookstore. She could take a California success story back to New York.
Rosa was delighted when I told her that I was planning to return to New York. “Certainly, come to New York, you can stay with me. I have a big apartment uptown.”
Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach had moved from Columbus Avenue to Central Park West. Their new apartment had an extra room. Abbey offered it to me over the telephone. Now I had two places I could stay.
Couples rarely know how much their togetherness shuts others out, and even if they did, there would be nothing they could do, save make everyone painfully self-conscious.
Rosa always had a string of devoted gentlemen friends, but since I had known her, she had not been the other half in a double arrangement—which seemed to say “We are together and you, third person, are invisible most of the time.”
I accepted Rosa’s offer and continued packing.
Everything said about the capricious nature of life and the best-laid plans is patently true. Just as I chose a departure date, my doorbell rang. When I opened the door, Bailey stood on the landing, his face grave.