Good Negress

by Verdelle, A. J.

  “How’s dinner, Buddy?” Mama asked, and I wanted to know too since I helped.

  “A clean plate tells everything,” he said, and proceeded to clean his plate. Twice. Everything got eaten up, except there was some of that big ham left. Mama said, “We can pinch off it all week,” satisfaction in her voice.

  Luke and David had huge appetites too. Was it the boy in them that made them eat and eat? And then, too, is it the boy in them that makes them play so hard, no matter who’s been calling, and no matter for how long? Did they stay out playing because my father was out working? Was that the boy-child equivalent of the man-child’s life?

  I pulled off my dress and put my apron back on, to help Mama with the dishes. The boys changed and went outside, since we weren’t going visiting for once; people were coming to see us. Daddy said he was tired, said he was going to take a nap. He lifted me off the stool I used to reach the dishes good, and said, “You look Easter pretty, even in your apron! Thank you for dinner, Little Miss.” Then he and Mama went in to their bedroom and closed the door.

  After I finished all the dishes, I wondered if I should try the pans and pots. Mama had told me that I should never touch them, they were too big for me to handle yet. I thought it would be a nice surprise. But before I could get my maturity going, there were hard knocks at the door.

  The noise was instant, so many voices at once. I waited. “What y’all doin in here, Margarete? We was about to go make another party somewhere else! Where’s your travelling husband? Y’all go to church today?”

  “Come on in here,” Mama was saying, and pulling this hand and that one. Everybody kissed everybody else. My daddy came out of the bedroom, and picked me up from where I stood. He carried me right to the door with him, and I had one foot behind the other one, prim and shy. “Well, isn’t she growing into a doll baby?” My cheeks got pinched. “Ain’t she a little old for you to be carrying, Buddy?”

  “She’s my baby, I don’t get to carry her much,” my daddy said. One man pinched my leg, and my daddy smacked his hand. Everybody laughed (me too). “Where those boys a yours?”

  “Out runnin amok,” my daddy said.

  “They be in here before too long,” Mama adds, “hungry again.”

  The ham we brought from Virginia was a hit. The people who visited put slices of it between the rolls from the church. “This is good ham, Margarete!” And Margarete told the story of Mr. Howell Jones, and I listened to get the pieces of the story I wouldn’t know, so that if I told the story myself, it would be as full as thick soup.

  THEM WASHINGTON PIGS

  AFTER DADDY ASKED for Virginia ham for Easter, we went to visit Mr. Howell Jones, who smoked meat. Mama was happy to arrange a spring trip to see Granma’am. Mama took me with her, and after our visit with Granma’am, we carried our sweet Virginia ham from Patuskie back to Detroit. Mr. Howell Jones smoked the best of everything east of Arkansas, which is where he had come to Patuskie from.

  Mr. Howell Jones looked like he had smoked himself along with all his meat. Near purple-red and with skin ridged like hide, his sausage fingers were thick to bursting. He was gleeful near to drooling when people came to choose from his smoked and hanging parts of pig or whole smoked chickens. I liked to look at the chickens, and I wished we would have bought a smoked bird sometimes.

  Some of the chickens had heads still on. All the pigs had been axed into parts. You could get any piece or part of meat from Mr. Howell Jones. What you didn’t see you asked for; the stranger it was what you wanted, the slower Mr. Howell Jones would grin, and usually he said, “Hold on, I got a piece a that.”

  Walking under his hanging slabs of meat made me curious. He never looked bloody. Blood splatters, don’t it? I wished I could catch him one time or another with the blood of a pig on his face or in his hair. How come I couldn’t see him dressed in redwash from the pigs? When did he kill them? And how did they yowl, dying?

  He used a great long stick for unhanging. As he lowered the meat, he told you the age, season, and source of pig, whether or not you asked.

  Other animals smoked a different color than the pigs. They were larger or greener or redder or blacker than the pork pieces hung down the center of his smokeshack. Those were the pigs. “Any piece a meat hung up and roasted by smoke take on its own look and taste,” Mr. Howell Jones was apt to tell you. “That’s why it’s good to come and see and pick yo’ pieces a meat yo’self.” He had the habit of rubbing his thick fingers together; the rubbing made a soft, mild noise. He is quiet, near invisible, while you inspect the meat and then point at whatever hang you want to buy.

  “This is one a the last pieces a them Washington pigs.” He is aiming his unhooking stick at Margarete’s ham. The Washingtons, a clan a stringy peckerwoods belonged to central Virginia, had been run off they rented farm. “You remember the Washingtons, don’cha, Margaret?” The hook had caught the heavy smoked-brown rope that ran through a hole in the meat. As the past had it, the Washingtons were evil, ornery white tenant farmers who worked one more parcel of land every season. (We call those kind peckerwoods.) Worked as much land as they could run niggers off of, with they niggardly spirits and snaggle-tooth heads. Mr. Howell Jones kept muttering, “Marryin each other like that. Yeah, you know they got run off? That land overtook them—child marryin child like that, brother marryin sister, tryin to stay that pitiful white they was. Cain’t weaken yo blood and strengthen the land all at the same time.” (Heh, heh.) “They eyes got glassy and nervous as marbles, and they teeth start to comin in fewer and farther back in they heads. Been here seventy years, bout time for em to go. And I seen em go through all they changes, weakenin and dyin off like that.”

  Mr. Howell Jones lowered our ham with confidence. He was a legendary smoker and would not let his meat hit ground, especially not in front of the customers. “Guess you come all the way from Deetroit, Missy Margaret, to get this here ham.” He laughed at his own celebrity, and asked Missy Margaret how was things, though, seriously. And where were them handsome boys a hers? And how old was she now?

  Mama told him that Luke and David are fine, at home. And she is old enough now not to say how old she is.

  Mr. Howell Jones chuckled and tendered one ham. Mama ran her hand over the ham skin, and since she was accepting, Mr. Howell Jones got the paper. He wrapped the ham in a couple of layers, knowing we were taking it far away. He was saying how he remembered the week they left (he’s back to discussing the Washington pigs), all the animals they couldn’t tie to the dray got scattered. “All them sunken chileless women huddled on the flatbed. Was bout five men for each one a the women they had. They was workin them women too young. I knew they was gone either lose the stock or the women one, but they dragged the women on and we split up they wanderin stock.”

  He went on and said some more about how he had fattened up the scrawny stock the Washingtons left.

  “I know you did, Mr. Howell,” Margarete said, relish in her voice.

  “Well, little Margaret”—he handed her the ham like it was already on the serving platter—“this here is a sweet Virginia ham.” And she took it.

  I started begging my mother to let me carry it soon as we were out of Mr. Howell Jones’s hearing. “It’s too heavy, Neesey,” she said but I begged. She handed it to me, and it was like a boulder. I couldn’t even manage holding it by its neat cross lace of twine. Mama either had to watch me drop it or take it back, so she took it back.

  Me and Mama carried the ham back to Granma’am’s. “It’s one a the Washington hams!” I burst out, up-to-datin Granma’am soon as we walked through the door. Mama slipped the black hog’s hair that Granma’am had asked for into a pocket of Granma’am’s housedress; I saw. Later, we carted the ham back to Detroit. My daddy’s Easter dinner, and he would be home a whole week! I was seven.

  Riding back I had some rough moments, giving up my mother’s lap to that big white anchor of a lump. It took up the most comfortable space there was. From time to time, Mama moved it to u
nder my feet on the seat, so I could lay down and sleep.

  Daddy came home for Easter with presents, as usual. He will be home all week, not usual. David and Luke edward both got new shoes. He brought me a yellow Easter coat.

  “Daddy!” I squealed. “How’d you know to bring yellow?” Somehow I thought my mother and father never talked.

  The coat was the new material for spring. And it was honeysuckle yellow, not pale. It had a white collar and white cuffs on the sleeves and a little stream of yellow lace sewn round the collar and cuffs. It had half a belt, with two buttons, in the back. And out from under the belt, the skirt was pleated. So the top was like a suit jacket and the bottom like a skirt. It was the most special of all the coats the world held.

  “No ice cream today,” my daddy said.

  I looked at him to make sure it wasn’t nothing I had done.

  Mama leaned down to me and took my chin in her hands. “That coat cost your daddy a pretty penny. No ice cream on the new coat.”

  MY DADDY’S EXHAUSTION is carved into his face like a mask, and shows too through his hands, their stiffness. His hands are hooked as if somebody’s suitcase he is carrying is still lodging its weight into his fingers. He is as close to boisterous as Buddy Palms gets, and he would have to be. We are all so glad to see him. I run to him and leap, fully expecting that he will catch me, throw me up into the air, look closely at my face, tell me I’m his darling, take my weight. David and Luke edward come running, grab him and hang like he’s a boxing bag. Margarete hangs back and waits for all his attention after we run to get all the curled paper things and other nothings we’ve done while he’s been gone. When we get back into the living room with what we have to show Daddy, they are standing in the same place, hugging with their eyes closed.

  Fatigue lists his mouth to one side and nips its corners. He chisels a smile over it, but it is recognizably a routine smile, maybe the same one he uses on the trains. The same one that earned coins for him through the many family-absent nights. It was not a smile that warmed me, it made me think that he should rest.

  THE PEOPLE WHO visited Daddy wanted to play cards. “Cards!” my mother said. “It’s Easter!” They did not use the kitchen table—my mother had set it for dessert. Daddy set up a card table in the front room where they played Bid Whist all afternoon. I had a nap, and woke up again. David and Luke edward came in and gorged the dessert. The grownups had tastes and played cards and more people came, and my daddy laughed and got to looking more tired. All his friends were there; he was happy and falling to sleep at the same time. He held my mother’s hand through the card games and the evening.

  I got put to bed before everybody had gone. And late in the night, in my turns I noticed that the house finally did get quiet.

  I WOKE UP Easter Monday as chipper as a blue jay. My daddy never did get up.

  People get selfish around the dying. They want whatever will help the dying live, they say; no matter how impossible those things have been before. All of a sudden, the dying person could have done all the things the dying person ever wanted to do. We have no shame promising the impossible, trying to call a person back to life. And, all at once, there are no limits to what we can or will give, to make sure the dying person has all that he needs. We fall resolutely from realism, we can’t be honest in the world, not at this time, anyway. People can think of nothing but the dying person’s grace, needs, longevity. The dying face floats a helium balloon in our air, all smiles and strength and ease; we dream. There is nothing but drama and romance around a deathbed. My daddy was the perfect man.

  First my mama shook him, but then she relaxed since he was breathing. She thought he was fooling, but I knew better. I was standing in the doorway to their room, and Margarete was leaning over him, teasing. He had nothing to say. She thought his sprawling was just to slow down the rush of morning, so the day would be longer too. I knew he would greet me, whatever kind of joke he was playing. He did not open his eyes to wink at me, he did not twist his fingers together so I would know the fun. He did not wiggle his toes, even though his feet stuck out from under the covers, callused, and reddish like his skin.

  Mama shook and shook him—“Buddy, Buddy,” she was calling. He was limp and heavy like a drunk.

  Nervousness dropped over my mama like a net. Very quickly she stopped making sense. “Please, please,” she begged. David and Luke edward flanked me in the doorway; I started to cry. There was a patch of blood, like a dime, at the end of his nose.

  David dashed out the house and came back with Miss Lena, who came in the house and slapped Margarete. I wanted to slap Miss Lena, but I wasn’t big enough. She hurried us dressed and shuttled us outside. A doctor came. A siren came. Neighbors came. I sat outside pouting at the corner of our grass. The ants were celebrating their low-world spring. I wondered do ant-fathers die.

  It wasn’t until Friday that my daddy died from a stroke. He stayed home almost the full week he intended, but he never did get up. Never said another word. My mother held his head. And rocked. They said he ate salt and bacon. Mama called his name. They said he was not healthy, red. Mama didn’t answer. They said who knew about his diet, what with him being gone all the time.

  I wanted him to get up and be lively with me. Mama wanted him to wake up too, she tried to talk him into it. But he did not talk, did not wink, did not twist his fingers, did not wiggle his red, red feet. He stayed until Friday, and died.

  Mama cried and cried and cried. She made hardly any noise but her face shined with tears. She lost weight, which I noticed cause her eyes seemed to grow bigger in her head.

  David and Luke edward moped, and Margarete and Aunt Lena joined mama-forces. Not that this meant any greater strength, because Margarete needed a woman’s care, and until Granma’am came, Aunt Lena gave it.

  People kept coming with business to take care of. Margarete was unresponsive, and so Granma’am rode the train through the night between us, came to Detroit and stepped in. People brought food from all corners of Detroit. One night, late, we were all in the kitchen trying to eat some hot fruit Granma’am had made. Mama threw out twelve pork chops, two pounds of bacon, and some pig feet. Granma’am said she was in a fit of loss. Was some other covered up trays that people had brought got thrown away too. Big elaborate cuts of meat somebody had slaved over, in the trash and to the alley where dogs left bones and died themselves.

  Granma’am’s knowing hands, so soon again. She tucked me into my bed, while the door to the house kept opening and closing, what with people coming through. Margarete was not who I expected her to be, and although Granma’am did not wear one housedress while she was there, she still smelled like her usual snuff and detergent. Her walk was a rhythm I could rest on.

  Granma’am and Mama were at angles, even though Mama was kind of sick. Granma’am did not think Mama should have Daddy’s suits on the bed. Miss Lena told Granma’am it would be OK, and Granma’am mumbled about not having good Christian sense. Miss Lena and Granma’am settled that Granma’am would watch out for us kids, and Miss Lena would keep Margarete. Granma’am and Miss Lena planned the funeral together.

  Granma’am came to rub my forehead when she heard me crying. “Y’daddy’s gone on to Paradise, darlin,” was what Granma’am said, stroking. It may me cry even more. Paradise was where he had been on the trains. Even if he had gone there again, he wouldn’t be coming back this time.

  “It was the Washington pigs,” I whimpered.

  “What you sayin, Baby Sister?” Granma’am charged.

  “It was Virginia, the ham,” I whined. The only time in my life it got said aloud.

  “Oh. Yes, baby,” she said. “Y’daddy shoulda been eatin mo’ diffrunt kindsa things.”

  MISS LENA DRESSED the three of us for our daddy’s funeral. She went out and got Mama a distinguished suit and veil in black. We all stood at the graveside where my daddy’s coffin lay. Oh, the postures of children at the graves of their father! They make small hooklike outlines—thin bodie
s, bent heads. They think they are like soldiers because they give so superhumanly to stand there, but anyone can see their hearts and shoulders flutter, their little wills shake. And further, I can tell you, they don’t know what it is, what it means, that the life and the voice are gone. Only a hole remains where a heart and loving eyes had lived, had bounded in with trinkets, had bent with joy and wonder. No matter how much dirt is poured on it, or how much time passes by, that hole is not filled. And guilt—it settles and settles.

  Like a puzzle put together from shards of recollection, I held and loved my hazy broken dreams of him. As I grew and changed, the haze stayed steady. There was nothing to do but hold our romance close. At any point in time, he was perfect, just perfect, and he became more so as time went on.

  My daddy was forty-two when he died. He never got any different in his crawlspace in my head. Never did get mean, or blind, or bitter, or brittle, or sick, or dispossessed, or old. I watched as many men as I could, as I grew, looking for the man my daddy was. Eventually, my life caught up with his. As he stared back at me from his frozen age of dying, the loss in me would chant: he was a young man, he was a young man.

  DAYS OF DISBELIEF

  A MAN CAME who worked with Daddy on the trains. He put a big hard hand on my hair, which had been ruffled by all this business; he smoothed it down and told me that my daddy talked all the time about his princess little girl. Mama had us all sitting in the front room. She said for us to listen to what the man from the trains had to say. Luke was curled up under Mama like he was still in the belly. The man from the trains gave Mama some papers and said, “These Are Very Important,” and she should call him if she needed help. He also handed David—for his family, he said—a fat envelope. Inside there was money, curling, having been through many hands. It had been collected, pressed flat, stacked up, and brought to us.