by Ann Petry
In the bedroom he pulled the closet door open in a kind of frenzy. Her few clothes still hung there—shapeless house dresses and the frayed coat she wore every day. The run-over felt slippers were on the closet floor, the raised places along the sides mute testimony to the size of the bunions on her feet. But her best hat and coat were gone; and the ugly black oxfords she wore on her occasional trips to church.
Could she have gone off and left him like the others? It was impossible to tell from the contents of the closet—these limp house dresses weren’t important to her. She could always buy some others. And the felt slippers, though easy on her feet, were practically worn out. She didn’t own a suitcase, so he couldn’t tell whether she would be back.
If she had really left him, it didn’t look so good for his chances with Lutie. For the first time he felt doubtful about Lutie’s having him. Up to now he had been confident that it was only a matter of time and he would have her. This way he couldn’t be sure, because if a creature like Min didn’t want him there was no reason for him to believe that Lutie would have him.
Yet he still didn’t know for sure. He reached in toward the clothes, pushing them into a corner with a wide violent gesture of his arm as if by threatening them they would reveal whether Min had walked out on him. Abruptly he turned toward the living room, for it occurred to him that he could tell very easily whether she had gone for good. Just one glance would be enough to tell him. No. He nodded his head with satisfaction. She hadn’t walked out. She’d be coming back. For the big shiny table with the claw feet was still there against the living-room wall. She would never go away and leave that behind her. All he had to do was sit down and wait for her. Because he was going to put her out tonight and the shiny table could go right along with her.
He dozed in the chair by the radio, waiting to hear Min’s key click in the lock, wondering where she had gone. This was the first time he had ever known her to go out again after she came home from work. For she did the shopping on her way from work and then cooked and cleaned and soaked her feet for the rest of the evening. She didn’t have any friends that she visited. He grew angrier as he waited because he wanted to think about Lutie and instead he found himself wondering uneasily where Min had gone.
5
EARLIER IN THE EVENING, when Min was in the kitchen enjoying her supper, she was quite certain that Jones was planning some devilment while he sat in the living room. Even though he didn’t answer when she told him supper was ready, the thought of him sitting there by himself, probably hungry but being stubborn about it, finally brought her to the door to ask, ‘You ain’t eatin’?’
He shook his head and she went back to the kitchen to pour herself another cup of tea and spread butter thickly on a third slice of bread, thinking, He don’t know me. He thinks I don’t know what’s the matter with him.
She had seen him look at that young Mrs. Johnson the night she paid the deposit on the top-floor apartment. He had almost eaten her up looking at her, overwhelmed by her being so tall, by the way her body fairly brimmed over with being young and healthy. Three different times since then she had opened the hall door just a crack and seen him standing out there watching young Mrs. Johnson as she went up the stairs.
‘He thinks I don’t know what’s on his mind,’ she said to herself.
She knew all right, and she also knew what she was going to do about it. Though she had to find out first from Mrs. Hedges the right place to go. She felt certain Mrs. Hedges would know and would be only too glad to tell her because she was always ready to help folks out. Though Jones didn’t think so, because he didn’t like Mrs. Hedges. He didn’t know that she knew that either. But she had seen him roll his eyes up at Mrs. Hedges’ window; his face had been so full of hate he looked like Satan—black and evil.
Jones went out of the apartment and Min got up from the kitchen table, walked softly to the door and looked out into the hall. He was talking to Mrs. Johnson’s boy—a right healthy-looking boy he was, too. Maybe she ought to sort of hint to Mrs. Johnson that it wasn’t a good idea to let him hang around Jones. Not that there was anything wrong with Jones; it was just that he had lived in basements such a long time he was kind of queer, got notions in his head about things.
She stayed there at the door until she saw Jones open the cellar door and heard his footsteps go heavily down the stairs. He would be down there long enough for her to get dressed and consult with Mrs. Hedges.
She hastily washed the dishes, thinking that whether he came up out of the cellar before she got back from where she was going would make a bit of difference. She dressed hurriedly, putting on her good dress and her best black coat, even the newish pair of oxfords. She hesitated about a hat. The triangular scarf she tied over her head for going back and forth from work was much more comfortable, but a hat was more dignified. So she pinned a high-crowned black felt hat on top of her head with long hatpins, thus anchoring it against the wind that sometimes blew through the street with such speed and force.
She looked out into the living room with a cautious movement, just to make sure Jones hadn’t come in while she was dressing. Sometimes he got into the house so quiet she didn’t hear him, but turning around would find he was sitting in the chair by the radio or standing almost behind her in the kitchen. Just like a ghost.
Just to make certain she was by herself, she looked into the kitchen and the bathroom. Then she walked over to the big table in the living room and squatting down carefully so that the coat wouldn’t touch the floor she reached way up under the table. When she straightened up, she was holding a thin roll of bills in her hand. It was the money she had been saving for her false teeth. She looked at it, trying to decide whether she should take all of it with her. Yes, she thought, tucking it in her pocketbook, because she had no way of knowing how much she would need.
Before she left the room she patted the table gently. It was the best place to keep money she had ever found. She loved its smooth shiny surface and the way the curves of the claw feet gleamed when the light struck them, but the important thing about it was that secret drawer it contained. Until she got the table she had never been able to save any money. For her husbands could find her money, even if it was only a dollar bill or some silver, no matter where she put it. Almost as though they could smell it out whether it was put in coffee pots, under plates, in the icebox, under mattresses, between the sheets or under rugs.
Big Boy, her last husband before Jones, would snatch and tear it from her stocking, reach hard clutching hands inside her dresses in his eagerness to get at it. But with this table, Big Boy had been frustrated. That was really why he had left her. And she hadn’t cared at all about his leaving because he was always drunk and broke and hungry and trying to feed him was like trying to fill up a bottomless pit.
So when Jones invited her to move in with him, she had accepted readily. Because she didn’t have any place in particular to go to. Besides, she had the table, and if he turned out to be like the others it wouldn’t matter, because the table would protect her money and one of these days she would have enough to buy a set of false teeth. But Jones wasn’t like the others. He never asked her for money. That and the fact that he had invited her to come and live with him gave her a secure, happy feeling. He had wanted her just for herself, not for any money he might be able to get from her.
So when she came home from work, she cleaned the apartment and cooked for him and ironed his clothes. She bought a canary bird and a large ornate cage to put him in because she felt she ought to pretty the place up a little bit to show how grateful she was. What with not having to pay any rent, she was saving money so fast she would soon have her false teeth besides all the little things she saw and bought in the stores along Eighth Avenue.
She didn’t mind Jones being kind of quiet and his spells of sullenness—those spells he had when both she and the dog had to keep out of his way. In his own silent, gloomy way he was fond of her and he really needed her. She didn’t know when sh
e had ever been so happy. It kind of bubbled up in her so that she talked and talked and talked to him and to the dog. And when he and the dog went to stand outside the building, she talked to herself, but quietly so that folks wouldn’t hear her and think she was queer.
Everything was fine until that young Mrs. Johnson moved in. Then Jones changed so that he stayed mean and sullen all the time. Kicking at Buddy, snarling at her, slapping her. Only last night when she leaned over to take some beans out of the oven, he kicked her just like she was the dog. She had managed to hold on to the pan of beans, not saying anything, swallowing the hurt cry that rose in her throat, because she knew what was the matter with him. He had been comparing the way she looked from behind with the way young Mrs. Johnson would look if she should stoop over.
So the false teeth would just have to wait awhile longer, because she was going to spend her teeth money in order to stay in this apartment. She closed the door behind her gently. ‘Bless that table,’ she said aloud, and went outside to stand under Mrs. Hedges’ window.
‘Mis’ Hedges,’ she said timidly.
‘Hello, Min,’ Mrs. Hedges said immediately and settled her arms comfortably on the window sill in preparation for a long talk.
‘I wonder if I could come in for a minute,’ Min said. ‘I got something important to talk over with you.’
‘Sure, dearie. Just walk right in the door. It’s always open. You better ring a coupla times first so the girls won’t think you’re a customer.’
Min rang the bell twice and opened the door, thinking now, If she don’t help me I don’t know what I’ll do. She can tell me if she wants to, but sometimes folks won’t do things out of pure meanness. But not Mis’ Hedges, she thought hopefully. Surely not Mis’ Hedges.
She had never seen the inside of Mrs. Hedges’ apartment before and she stopped to look around, surprised to see how comfortable it was. The hall door led into the kitchen and there was bright linoleum on the floor, the kitchen curtains were freshly done up, and the pots and pans hanging over the sink had been scrubbed until they were shiny. There were potted plants growing in a stand under the window and she would have liked to examine them more closely, but she didn’t want Mrs. Hedges to think she was being nosy, so she went on through the kitchen to the next room where Mrs. Hedges was sitting by the window.
‘Pull up a chair, Min,’ Mrs. Hedges said. She verified the fact that Min was wearing her good coat and hat and then said, ‘What’s on your mind, dearie?’
‘It’s Jones,’ Min said, and stopped, not knowing how to go on. The doorbell tinkled and she started to get up, thinking that it might be Jones, that he had seen her come in and followed her, wanting to know what she was doing there.
‘It’s all right’—Mrs. Hedges waved her hand indicating Min was to sit down again. ‘Just a customer for one of the girls. Saw him go past the window.’ She paused, waiting for Min to go on, and when Min said nothing, simply sat staring at her with miserable unhappy eyes, Mrs. Hedges said, ‘What about Jones, dearie?’
Once Min started talking, she couldn’t seem to stop. ‘He’s got his eye on that young Mis’ Johnson. Ever since she moved in he’s been hungerin’ after her till it’s made him so mean he ain’t fit to live with no more.’ She leaned toward Mrs. Hedges in an effort to convey the urgency of the situation. ‘I ain’t never had nothing of my own before. No money to spend like I wanted to. And now I’m living with him where they ain’t no rent to pay, why, I can get things that I see. And it was all right until that Mis’ Johnson come here to live. He’ll be putting me out pretty soon. I can tell by the way he acts. And Mis’ Hedges, I ain’t goin’ back to having nothing. Just paying rent. Jones don’t ask for no money from me and he wasn’t never this mean until that young Mis’ Johnson come here. And I ain’t goin’ to be put out.’
She paused for breath, and then continued: ‘I come to you because I thought mebbe you could tell me where I can find a root doctor who could help me. Because I ain’t going to be put out,’ she repeated firmly. Opening her pocketbook she took out the thin roll of bills. ‘I can pay for it,’ she said. ‘This was the money I was saving for my false teeth,’ she added simply.
Mrs. Hedges glanced at the roll of bills and began to rock, turning her head occasionally to look out on the street. ‘Listen, dearie,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t know nothing about root doctors. Don’t hold with ’em myself, because I always figured that as far as my own business is concerned I was well able to do anything any root doctor could do.’
Min’s face clouded with disappointment and Mrs. Hedges added hastily: ‘But the girls tell me the best one in town is up on Eighth Avenue right off 140th Street. Supposed to be able to fix anything from ornery husbands to a body sickness. Name’s David. That’s all it says on the sign—just David, the Prophet. And if I was you, dearie, I wouldn’t let him see them bills all at one time. Root doctor or not, he’s probably jest as hungry as you and me.’
Min got up from the chair so eager to be on her way to the root doctor that she almost forgot to thank Mrs. Hedges. She was halfway out of the room when she remembered and she turned back to say, ‘Oh, Mis’ Hedges, I can’t ever thank you.’ She opened her purse and took out a bill. ‘I’ll just leave this,’ she said, putting it down on a table.
‘That’s all right, dearie,’ Mrs. Hedges said. Her eyes stayed for a long moment on the bill and it was with a visible effort that she looked away from it. ‘Put it back in your pocketbook,’ she said finally.
Min hesitated and then picked it up. When she looked back into the room, Mrs. Hedges was staring out of the window, brooding over the street like she thought, if she stopped looking at it for as much as a minute, the whole thing would collapse.
Before Min stepped out into the hall, she cracked the door of Mrs. Hedges’ apartment and peered out to make sure she wouldn’t run head-on into Jones. She stood there listening to make certain that he wasn’t coming up the cellar stairs, and she heard heavy footsteps going up and up the stairs, from the second floor to the third. It sounded like Jones. And listening more and more intently, she knew that it was Jones. What was he going upstairs for? She opened the door wider in order to hear better. The footsteps kept going up and up, getting fainter as he kept climbing. He was going to the top floor.
‘You’re letting all the cold air in, dearie,’ Mrs. Hedges called out.
Min hastily closed the door and scuttled out into the street. She waved a hasty salute toward Mrs. Hedges’ window and almost ran toward the bus stop at the corner. What was he doing going up to that Mis’ Johnson’s apartment? She shivered. The air wasn’t cold, but it seemed to come right through her coat in spite of her going along so fast. It was always colder on this street than anywhere else, she thought irritably, and Jones kept the apartment so hot she felt the cold go right through her when she first went out. And the thought of him set her to walking faster. His going up to Mrs. Johnson’s apartment tonight meant Mrs. Hedges had told her about the Prophet David just in time.
The Eighth Avenue bus was so crowded that she had to stand to 140th Street, hanging on to a strap as best she could, for her arms were short and she had to reach to get hold of the strap. The bus no sooner got under way than her feet began to hurt, rebelling against the unaccustomed oxfords. For the stiff leather encased her bunions so tightly that they burned and throbbed with pain until she was forced to shift her weight from one foot to the other in an effort to ease them.
They could keep right on hurting, she thought grimly, because no matter what she had to go through, no matter how much money it cost, she wasn’t going to let Jones put her out. She swayed back, and forth as the bus lurched, trying to wipe out the thought of the pain in her feet by determinedly repeating, ‘And I ain’t a-goin’ to be put out.’
It was nice of Mrs. Hedges to tell her where to find a root doctor, she thought. Yet now that she was actually on her way to consult him, she felt a little guilty. The preacher at the church she went to would certainly disap
prove, because in his eyes her dealing with a root doctor was as good as saying that the powers of darkness were stronger than the powers of the church. Though she went to church infrequently, because she usually had to work on Sundays, the thought of the preacher disturbed her. But he didn’t need to know anything about her going, she decided. Besides, even the preacher must know there were some things the church couldn’t handle, had no resources for handling. And this was one of them—a situation where prayer couldn’t possibly help.
She climbed awkwardly out of the bus at 140th Street, putting her weight on her feet gingerly to cushion them against the quick stab of pain any sodden, careless movement would bring. Before she was quite off the steps, she was already looking for the root doctor’s sign, so that she collided with the passengers waiting to get on. Someone stepped on her feet and instantly hot fingers of pain clawed at her bunions, reached up her legs and thighs, making her draw her breath in sharply.
Then she saw the sign and she forgot about the pain. It was right near the corner as Mrs. Hedges had said—a big sign that winked and blinked off and on in the dark so that she thought the words ‘David, the Prophet’ were like a warm, friendly hand beckoning to her to come in out of the cold. She looked at it so long her eyes started to blink open and shut just like the sign. So he really was a prophet. She had thought perhaps Mrs. Hedges had made up that part about his being a prophet. That was fine, for he would be able to tell her what the future looked like for her.
It wasn’t a very big place she discovered when she got right in front of it, though it did have a large window that was sparkling clean. She stopped to look at the objects displayed in the window. Some of them were familiar, but most of them she had never seen before and could only conjecture about the way in which they were used. There were colored candles, incense burners, strangely twisted roots, fine powders in small boxes, dream books, lucky-number books, medallions, small figures of monkeys and elephants, a number of rabbits’ feet, monkey’s fur, and candlesticks of all sizes and shapes. The window also contained a great many statues of the Madonna. They were illuminated with red lights, and there were so many of the statues and thus so many of the lights that they sent a rose-colored glow out onto the sidewalk.