“Who you think you’re talking to? You half-breed, half-assed educated fool.” Dottie moved out toward the aisle side of the pew.
“Ooh, Fannie, a fight,” Liz whispered, sitting up, rubbing her hands together. “There’s getting ready to be a fight.”
But Fannie didn’t respond. Her head was throbbing too much to respond. The colors had gotten too glaring. The red velvet strip that hung down the center of the wooden podium, the gold trim to the pages of the altar Bible, the orange and blue reflecting from the stained glass windows. The colors were too angry, too noisy. She balled her fists trying to anchor herself, to center herself. She didn’t want to be beaten down by the intensity of the colors. Her eyes opened and closed hard and fast, and she started to bounce up and down in the pew.
Liz wanted to nudge Noon, to tell her Fannie must be getting ready to see something. But she didn’t want to call attention to her. What if Fine Willie Mann was looking? He wouldn’t understand that once in a while this happened to Fannie when she was getting ready to see something. He would think Fannie was crazy, probably think that about the whole damn family.
Liz didn’t have to nudge Noon. Just as Dottie called Jeanie an atheist bitch, right out loud, she hollered it straight through the sanctuary, “Come on you atheist bitch,” she said, and right when Jeanie planted her feet solidly where she stood as Dottie moved down the aisle with her fists raised to the beat of Reverend Schell’s furious gavel, Fannie let loose.
She jumped up and shouted, “It ain’t no road, it ain’t no road.” She was on fire, convulsing. Her arms flailed; her legs kicked; her hair stood on end, electrified. “It ain’t no road, no road nowhere,” she screamed.
Noon pulled Fannie down. Wrestled with her. Held her arms while Fannie shook. Liz tried to help hold Fannie down while she sloped in her seat and prayed that Willie Mann had left early. Noon pressed her face close to Fannie’s. “What you see, Fannie? Tell me what you see.”
“I don’t see no road,” Fannie moaned.
“What you see?” Noon pleaded. “Tell me, please, what you see?” Noon spoke deliberately, softly right into Fannie’s ear.
“Houses, I see houses,” Fannie whispered.
“Where you see houses? What kind of houses? Tell me, tell Noon what you see.”
“Here, all around here,” Fannie said, gasping in Noon’s cradled arms. “Brick houses, bright, new, red brick.”
“Shush, you sure it’s here, Fannie?” Liz whispered, holding her head low. “Everybody’s looking.”
“Here!” Fannie yelled. Her eyes were shut tight; tears ran down her face. Noon dabbed at her cheeks with her handkerchief.
“Take your time, Fannie,” Noon said, talking gently, encouragingly. “Do you see a highway?”
“No!” Fannie, said, and then her eyes opened all at once. “No,” she said again, and then started to cry. “I don’t see no damned highway. It ain’t gonna be no road through here, Noon.” She sobbed while Noon rubbed her back, and Liz tried to push down her hair that was wild and standing straight up.
“It’s okay,” Noon whispered. “It’ll be okay.”
Fannie’s outburst got in the middle of the fight between Jeanie and Dottie. Broke it up better than the fifteen or so who had run center stage to try to prevent it. They gasped at a teenager having such an outburst as that.
“The devil in her,” one of them said.
“What she say about houses, what was that all about?” another one asked.
“She might be right,” another one insisted. “The chile just might know what she talking ’bout.”
“Well, it don’t give her no right to curse, the chile ain’t getting proper home training considering that the one raising her think she so proper,” said Dottie. “I would say she like her real parents, ’cept don’t no one know who her real parents are. The chile could be a witch, could be the devil’s chile for all we know. Act like someone possessed to me if I ever saw it.”
“Can we go?” Fannie cried. “I just want to go home.”
“Sure, baby, let’s get you home,” Noon said as she helped Fannie to stand.
She and Fannie and Liz moved out of the pew and down the aisle. The church was completely silent as the three moved up the center aisle to get to the door. They breathed in unison, it seemed: Noon and Fannie and Liz inhaled; the congregation exhaled. Even the colors settled down to a pattern. Liz kept her head looking at the floor, at the occasional feet pushed out into the center aisle. She was too embarrassed to look in the faces. Too terrified to look up and maybe see Willie Mann staring at her, shaking his head in disdain.
He wasn’t. He smiled, in fact. Bared his perfect teeth from end to end. He looked at Fannie as she leaned on Noon. He liked her graceful slenderness. And her wild dark hair against her light skin, and the way the intensity of her eyes interrupted what could have been a soft face. He chuckled to himself at Fannie being called a devil’s child.
They were right at his pew pulled along by the congregation’s unified breaths. Willie Mann cleared his throat and grabbed Liz’s hand and squeezed it. He winked and smiled right into her eyes, eyes that turned to saucers filled with shock before they melted into the look of a young woman in love.
TWENTY
Ethel stretched across the soft gold bedspread on the king-sized bed in her Harlem brownstone. It was afternoon in May, and a perfect breeze riffled through the leaves on the tree outside her window and sounded like bacon sizzling in a hot black skillet. She tore open an envelope with her done-up nails slicing through the paper like a penknife. She knew Willie Mann’s handwriting. Most good-for-nothings got the nerve to have the best handwriting, she thought. She dumped the contents on her bed, tossed aside his note, and went straight for another envelope, opened it, and recognized it as an invitation. Oh, my God, she thought, it was an invitation to Fannie and Liz’s sweet sixteen party. She read Willie Mann’s note. “Just thought you’d like to know,” it said.
She smiled when she thought about Fannie and Liz turning sixteen. My, my, my. Sixteen.
Her face broke out into a complete smile as suddenly the thought occurred to her to sneak back into Philly, spy on Liz at her party, see what type of young lady she was turning out to be. Even though Willie Mann pretty much kept her up-to-date with his persistent notes and letters, even sent her pictures a couple of times of year, she wanted to see for herself.
She stared at the invitation, at the word “sixteen” in big block letters and listened to the leaves sizzling and the antique wooden clock with the solid gold face ticking away on the stand next to her bed. Usually this time of afternoon she was preoccupied with songs for her set, what she’d wear, the next tour that always came too quickly on the heels of the last one, counting her money—making sure her manager wasn’t cheating her. Or else she’d be thinking about what man she’d bring home after her set was done to share her passion that was too wide, so wide that she had to give it away. Night after night. If she wasn’t free with her passion, she feared it might settle in her chest like a bad pneumonia and take her breath away.
But right now her mind was clear of all she had to do and she was thinking about Liz being sixteen. Suddenly she was cold stretched across the king-sized bed in only her black lace slip. So she wrapped herself up in the gold bedspread mummy style. She took a deep breath as if she were trying to reach a high note. She rolled herself tighter in the bedspread and thought about what she could say to a sixteen-year-old about why she’d abandoned her.
She’d start off telling Liz about her mother, Coreen, how well she married, how smart her daddy was, had college even, had a good job as a chemist when they were all burned up in that car fire. She’d whisper to her about how her own mother had suffered from what her grandmother called a weakness in the brain. Smart enough, but sometimes her judgment came from the weak part of her brain and made her do things without thinking: go out with strange men, bring them home with her all times of the night. That’s why her grandmother had to raise
Coreen and her.
And then Ethel wasn’t even thinking about what she’d say to Liz anymore, rolled up in the soft gold bedspread. She burrowed her head in her arms and tried to blot out the loud ticking of her bedside clock. She didn’t want to go back there because she knew she wouldn’t be able to turn her thinking off when she got to that part. But she was back there anyhow, eleven years old and back there in Albany.
She and Coreen were standing by the front window waiting for their mother to pick them up from their grandmom’s, where they had lived for the past year. It was like Christmas to Ethel, not that her grandmother wasn’t a gem, but she reasoned everything living wants to be with its own mother. Her grandmom held them close and whispered, “Your mother’s a good woman, just got a problem making decisions now and then. Sometimes when she gets tired, she listens to those voices coming from that weak part of her brain. Now she’s been away resting for a full year, and those citified doctors say they can’t tell whether or not it’s gonna flare up again. So y’all got to be strong for her, and you got to tell me if she start slipping back to her old ways so I can reclaim you and get you raised up right.”
They said, “Yes, ma’am,” to their grandmother and waited by the window until they saw their mother coming up the road to get them. Pretty woman. Face got completely round when she smiled because her cheeks pushed out so, shapely curves to her hips and legs, soft skin had red tones to it, big innocent-looking eyes, a gentle brown. They ran and met her and jumped up and down all over her. Her hands shook a little when she gave them each soft pink hair ribbons and white anklet socks with the daintiest pink embroidery. Ethel made much over the socks but pretended not to notice her mother’s hands; she just wanted her mother to take them home.
That first night back home with her mother was like heaven to Ethel. They slept in the same bed, the three of them. They snuggled against one another, and their bodies were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle the way they just fit. They sighed in comfort, and Ethel felt as if she were floating as she went to sleep in her mother’s arms. Those were the things she liked to remember about her mother. All that was good and honest about her. The lip-licking meals she’d cook from breakfast to supper. And how she’d kept their house clean as the inside of a church on Communion Sunday. And how she’d play old maid, and hide-and-seek, and any other kind of game that kept them in stitches, running and laughing and hugging when the game was done. She even wanted to think about her mother’s hugs, how sometimes she’d hug them so hard and Ethel would feel something desperate in her arms. Years later Ethel came to understand it as a pleading. She wanted Ethel to save her with the hug. Hold her back from those voices trying to pull her to the other side of their cozy country house, voices that were stronger than her little girl’s arms.
She stopped her thoughts and lifted her head. The clock on the nightstand seemed to be ticking right in her ear, so she rolled to the other side of the king-sized bed. “Loud-ass clock,” she muttered as she shifted under the bedspread to get comfortable again so she could think about her mother’s goodness.
But all she could think about right now as she listened to the leaves sizzling on the tree right outside of her window was that damned bacon frying. It was burning in the black skillet, and her mother was just shaking the pan back and forth, letting it burn. The smoke was white and rose to the ceiling and then just settled over her mother like a fog landing. She and Coreen stood there watching their mother’s back muscles flex in and out as she shook the pan. They held hands like two children afraid to cross a busy road, still in yesterday’s school clothes. They had fallen asleep by the front window the night before waiting for her to get home. The first time since they’d been back with her that she wasn’t there when they got home from school. Smiling. Holding out her hands for them to guess which one held their after-school treat. Coreen had cried herself to sleep in Ethel’s arms, and Ethel had consoled her as best she could considering that her own chest was on fire.
“Went to get bacon,” her mother said, her voice wavering from shaking the pan. “That’s why I was late, trying to find the best bacon in all of Georgia. Only the best for my girls.”
“Bacon’s burning, Mama,” Ethel said gently. “Whole kitchen might catch fire in a minute.”
“Bacon’s burning.” Her mother imitated her with a vicious-sounding voice, and Ethel felt a lump come up in her throat and Coreen’s hand tighten around hers.
“Mama, are you okay?” Ethel was breathing hard, and the smell of the bacon as it burned was nauseating.
“Yes!” her mother shouted as she pulled the pan from the fire and stumbled to the sink and let the bacon fall into the sink. The sizzling echoed through the whole kitchen. “What do you think, I burn a little bacon and I can’t raise you? You think you’d be better off with your grandmother, huh, go back to her then. Both of you, pack your bags and go the hell back.”
Coreen started to cry and ran to her mother and wrapped her hands around her back. “Please, Mama, we want to stay with you, please let us stay with you. The bacon’s okay, it’s okay.”
Ethel shuddered when she heard Coreen cry. She shuddered right now rolled up in the bedspread. In those six months that they had been back with their mother life had been perfect. She flexed her feet now under the spread and tried to shut her thinking down. But once she got to this point, she never could. The point when her mother turned around and the whole side of her face was raw flesh, as if she’d been dragged through the road all night long. Heavy black circles wrapped around both of her eyes, and her top lip was separated and still oozing blood.
Need to unwrap this damn bedspread right now, Ethel thought. Need to get up and put on some music. It was easier for her not to think about it if she had some music going. She tried to move from under the bedspread, but a chill had found its way through and raced inside of her from her toes to her scalp. Must be catching something, she thought. Probably need to close that window, storm must be kicking up out there or something. She couldn’t get up, though. She was shivering too bad to get up. Even as sweat inched along her skin like a child’s sticky fingers, she convulsed with chills.
The same way she got chills that morning when Alfred, their neighbor two doors down, tapped on the door and then walked on in. He was holding her mother’s gold-toned beaded purse. Nice young man. Stocked the shelves and sometimes worked the cash register at the penny store in the center of town. Trustworthy young man looking clean and honest as he stood in their smoke-filled kitchen in a starched checkered shirt, waving away smoke with one hand and holding Ethel’s mother’s purse in the other.
“Morning, Miss Charlotte,” he said, smiling the proud smile of someone doing a good deed. “You must have dropped this. Found it in my front yard this morning. Just peeped in it long enough to see the ID card in the little flap.” Then his face turned to stone when he looked at her. “My God, Miss Charlotte, what happened?” He took a few steps closer in, waving away the smoke as he walked. “Are you okay? Maybe you should have that checked out.” He walked closer still to get a better look, holding the beaded purse loosely in his hands.
Ethel always wished she’d cautioned him right then and there to run. She’d noticed the wild look that came up in her mother’s eyes as she stared at the purse. She’d watched her mother’s body stiffen more with each step he took toward her. And then it was like slow motion as her mother grabbed the paring knife from the silverware bin and let out a yell that made Ethel’s blood go to ice and her skin bead up with chills. But by the time Ethel screamed at her mother to stop, it was too late. By the time she pushed Coreen out of the way and tried to get the knife from her mother’s hand, her mother had already landed it over and over, yelling, “You, why you’d do this? Why you’d do this to me so my girls would have to see me this way?”
“It wasn’t Alfred, Mama, it couldn’t have been him. You’re making a mistake, Mama. Stop, please, you’re killing him, Mama.” Ethel wrestled with her mother. Tried to hold her mother’s ha
nd high in the air in a distorted Indian wrestle that relied only on the smoky air for support. Ethel’s little girl’s arms were too short, too weak. As her mother pulled rank on her, showed her who was in charge in a final tug and wrench, Ethel’s little girl’s arms went along for the ride as the knife plunged right where Alfred’s chest rose and fell.
Coreen ran out the back door, screaming for help, and Ethel’s mother squatted on the kitchen floor, fading in and out of consciousness. Ethel took Alfred’s head in her lap. “Don’t die, Alfred, please don’t die,” she begged as she choked and gagged on her sobs. “She didn’t mean it, Alfred, please don’t die.” She cried and pleaded to the erratic tune of the bacon still sizzling in the skillet in the sink as she tried to push the blood back in Alfred’s chest that was spurting like wine from a fountain at a wedding feast.
Ethel was sweating now rolled up in the soft gold bedspread. She thought when she tried to explain to Liz why she’d left her, she’d have to tell her about Alfred. About that feeling she gets when a man moans in her ear right before his release, and his heart is pounding with such a weightiness to it until it seems it might just get so heavy until it just stops, and he’s holding on to her for dear life. And she imagines it’s Alfred. She’s saving his life; she’s freeing him up, giving him pleasure, saving his life over and over again, night after night. Liz would never understand, Ethel was certain, but if she were to tell her, she’d have to describe her appetite, her craving for a man’s life force. That’s where her redemption was. Not in raising little girls but in saving grown men. That’s when she felt the purest, the cleanest, when she was exonerating her mother’s crime by bringing a man back to life.
The afternoon was noisy under her window. The evening paper hit the door with a thump and sounded like a body being thrown against it. Schoolchildren were returning home. They crunched leaves under their thick-soled school shoes and turned the sizzle to a whip cracking. They clapped their hands hard in a rhyming game. One little girl with a voice sounding just like Liz’s sang out louder than the others. “Old Lady Mack,” she chanted, “all dressed in black, with silver buttons, all down her back. She asked her mother, for fifteen cents, to see the elephant, jump over the fence. He jumped so high, he reached the sky, and never came back; till the Fourth of July, lie, lie.”
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