by Mary Monroe
Odell and I had two more drinks—on the house—and we discussed a few more subjects. But when everybody started yawning and slurring their words, I told Odell it was time for us to leave.
Chapter 27
Odell
“I HAD TO FORCE MYSELF TO KEEP FROM LAUGHING WHEN MILTON called his business a ‘speakeasy.’ ” Joyce snickered as we made our way back to our place. It was a few minutes after nine p.m.
“Tell me about it,” I said as I clicked on the living room light. “And what about all that tacky furniture in the living room? I’ve seen better-looking stuff at the city dump.”
We sat down on the couch at the same time. “What do you expect tacky people to have, Odell? I almost fainted when they gave us drinks in jelly jars! And what about that musty hillbilly?” Joyce howled with laughter.
I groaned and shook my head. And then I howled even louder and longer than Joyce. “White trash to the bone! He probably done slept with every female relative in his family, including his mama. Low-level white folks like them is the only kind you can expect to associate with colored people like Yvonne and Milton.”
“That’s the truth. There was enough dirt under his fingernails to plant turnip seeds.” Joyce screwed up her face and shuddered.
“And what about that shelf paper they got in the toilet to wipe your butt off with? That’s almost as bad as them corn cobs I had to use when I was growing up in the boondocks. Milton and Yvonne couldn’t be more countrified if they tried.”
“They remind me of puppies nobody wants. Oh well. They are still God’s children and I like them anyway. One thing I admire about them is the way they show their love to each other. The whole time we were over there, Yvonne looked at Milton like he was something good to eat. I could tell that he is hopelessly in love with her, too.”
“You already told me something like that. But what man wouldn’t be in love with a pretty woman like Yvonne?” I didn’t put my foot in my mouth too often and when I did, I took it out as soon as I could. I knew how self-conscious Joyce still was about her looks, so the comment I’d just made was equal to both my feet.
“You noticed her looks, huh?” Joyce’s words was so stiff, you would have thought she’d dipped them in starch.
“Well, kind of. She was so loud, how could I not notice her?”
“That’s not what I meant. Milton and Willie Frank were loud, too, and so were we for that matter.” A hurt look crossed Joyce’s face and I felt like a piece of shit. “I guess you also noticed how much prettier she is than me. I can understand why colored men act a fool when it comes to redbone women. It’s as close as they will ever get to having a white woman. . . .”
“Now you putting words in my mouth,” I accused.
“I don’t have to. You brought up Yvonne’s good looks.”
“Yeah, but so what? She ain’t got nothing on you! You the cream of the crop.”
“You really think so?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. Women that look like her is shallow and self-centered and that ain’t enough to keep a man like me happy. I wouldn’t take five Yvonnes for one of you.” That compliment must have really impressed Joyce. She sucked in some air and smiled. But the smile stayed on her face only a few seconds. The next thing I knew, she had tears in her eyes.
“I don’t care how much I got going for me, I would give anything in the world to know what it’s like to look like Yvonne.” She looked at her hands, which was even larger than mine. Her feet was too. “Every morning I have to coat my face with face powder and rouge, just to look decent. Women like Yvonne don’t have to do all that. They can roll out of bed looking as glamorous as the models in the Sears and Roebuck catalogs.”
“It don’t matter. I done told you and I hope I don’t have to keep telling you: You still got more going for you than Yvonne!”
Joyce’s jaw dropped. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“You a lot smarter and got way more class. You come from a real good family. Just from the few things she mentioned about her folks, I suspect they are just as trifling as mine. Yvonne Hamilton ain’t got a damn thing for you to be jealous about. Shoot! She just a pooh-butt waitress in a pooh-butt restaurant. You work for the nicest colored school in town. You give me everything I want from a woman.”
“Not everything . . .”
“What do you mean?” I asked, holding my breath. This was one question I already knew the answer to.
“I don’t care what you keep telling me, I know you won’t be satisfied until we have some children, and neither will I. Only then will our family be complete.”
“Um . . . it’ll happen, baby. Just give it a little more time,” was all I could say.
* * *
A little more time was what I needed so I could make extra trips to see Betty Jean and my boys. I just needed to find a way to justify some additional absences. That turned out to be easier than I thought it would be.
The day after our first visit together to the Hamiltons’ house next door, I came up with a plan that would allow me to spend at least one more night a week with Betty Jean. “Daddy ain’t doing too well. He wants me to start spending at least one more night a week with him,” I told Joyce a few minutes after I got home from work at five-thirty Tuesday evening.
“What’s the matter with him now? He’s not getting any better, huh?” she asked as she helped me take off my jacket. Joyce hadn’t been with me to visit my daddy in weeks, and I didn’t blame her. If Ellamae wasn’t in the picture, Joyce would have been as close to my daddy as she was to hers. Daddy liked her and he asked about her every time I saw him. But he understood why she didn’t like to come to his house. I didn’t want Joyce to change the way she felt and want to see Daddy more often because it would mean that I really would have to visit him more often and Betty Jean less.
“The same old things, just worse. He done convinced hisself that death is right around the corner. But according to him, it’s been that close for the past twenty-five years.” I chuckled. “Oh well. He have his good days and his bad days. I just wish he lived closer. The drive to get out to his place ain’t that long, but I don’t like them dirt roads and all them creatures jumping out the bushes in front of my car. Last time I drove out there, I ran over three different squirrels and almost hit a deer.”
“I’d go with you every time you went if Lonnie would get rid of Ellamae. The way he mean-mouths her to us, I can’t for the life of me understand why he keeps her around. They haven’t slept in the same bed in ten years. She talks to him like he’s a dog, and he’s caught her cheating on him! He should want her out of his life.”
“Getting rid of her wouldn’t solve the problem. After my mama died, every woman he got involved with was a she-devil. The next one might be even meaner than Ellamae. The thing is, he don’t like to live alone.”
“Then if the only reason he keeps her around is because he doesn’t want to live alone, he can move in with us,” Joyce said. “Let him know that if he only wants to take a short break from her, he’s welcome to stay with us for a few days or weeks.”
“I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear that, honey,” I replied. “But Daddy would never let that woman stay in the house he paid for by herself for a few days, let alone a few weeks. Knowing Ellamae, she’d probably have another man up in there in no time.”
“Or burn down the house.” Joyce heaved out a sigh. “Yvonne said she’d show me how to make a quilt, so I’m going to get started on that later this week. After that, she’s going to show me how to press and curl hair. It’ll be nice to have a girlfriend this close to do things with when you have to go away.”
“Yup. I’m glad you won’t be by yourself the extra nights I have to spend with Daddy.”
Chapter 28
Joyce
BY THE END OF THE FIRST WEEK, ODELL AND I HAD SPENT THREE evenings in a row since Sunday in the house next door drinking with Yvonne and Milton and a few of their other “guests.” Mama and Daddy, and even Reverend Jessup
had advised us not to get too close to bootleggers, especially since we didn’t know enough about them. We had told Yvonne and Milton almost all of our business, even the fact that I’d had a miscarriage and we’d been trying to have another child for five years. They told us that their parents were deceased and they had other relatives “here and there” that they were not close to, so they only communicated with them “now and then.” They were vague when it came to more details. Each time we brought up the subject, they changed it, so we let it alone. Odell and I really liked them and didn’t want to scare them off by being too nosy. “If and when Yvonne and Milton want us to know more about them, they’ll let us know,” I told Odell. I had told my parents and Reverend Jessup the same thing.
“One thing I do know about them is that they ain’t too shy about asking for money,” Odell volunteered on Friday morning before we left for work. We had just finished eating breakfast.
“What do you mean?”
“Milton came into the store Wednesday afternoon and asked me to lend him five dollars.”
“So what? You can afford to help a friend out every now and then. We’ve been lending money to some of our other friends for years.”
“True. And them same friends keep coming back again and again. And don’t none of them never pay us back when they said they would.”
“Did you give Milton the five dollars?”
“Yeah. And he came to the store again yesterday and paid me back. Just like he said he would.”
“Then I wouldn’t worry about it, Odell. Besides, they’ve been letting us drink on the house all week and I noticed that they always asked other guests to pay.”
“Let’s enjoy the freebies while we can. I guess they really want to impress us.”
“Well, it’s no wonder. They probably think that if they get close enough to us, some of our class will rub off on them. Lord knows they need all the grooming they can get,” I snickered.
“That’s fine with me. I’m a people person. As long as somebody treats me good, I’ll treat them good.”
“I feel the same way, baby. And another thing, until they ask us to pay, we’ll keep drinking on the house.” We both laughed. “I wouldn’t mind having some more of that homebrew the next time we visit them.”
“Um, me too, but it won’t be this evening. I’m going to pay Daddy a visit. Matter of fact, I was thinking about going straight to his house right after I close up the store and take the profits to your daddy. If that’s all right with you . . .”
“Baby, you go right ahead.” I gave Odell a dismissive wave as we walked toward the door, holding hands as usual. “I’m glad you decided to visit Lonnie more often. Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something to keep myself occupied.”
I didn’t want to spend the evening alone, so I decided to visit Mama and Daddy when I got off work. I had stayed at the school a little later than usual, so I didn’t get a ride with Patsy. But since it was June and the weather was so nice, I took the bus back to my street and walked the two blocks to my parents’ house.
They were sitting on the squeaky front porch glider when I got there, looking so anxious to see me you would have thought they hadn’t seen me in years. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they had on different clothes, I would have thought that they hadn’t moved from the porch since my last visit three days ago.
“Where is Odell this evening?” Mama asked when I stumbled up on the porch. She stood up and gave me a big hug.
“His daddy is getting worse. He went to spend the night with him,” I answered.
The two walking sticks that Daddy had recently started using lay across his lap. He didn’t stand up to greet me. He just smiled and patted the spot next to him. Mama sat back down on the other end and started picking her teeth with a straw from one of her whisk brooms. “You mean to tell me Lonnie’s got a wife—and a used-to-be nurse at that—but he still need his son to come out to them sticks to help him out?” Daddy asked with a frown.
“Odell doesn’t mind going out there. He loves his daddy as much as I love you. And I sure wouldn’t mind coming to help you or Mama out if you needed it.”
Mama stopped picking her teeth and gave me a dry look. “How come you didn’t go with him?” she wanted to know.
“How many times do I have to tell you I don’t like his daddy’s wife? That woman is so spiteful, she makes a rattlesnake look as tame as a butterfly. She must have ice water in her veins. I don’t want to be around her any more than I have to. I haven’t been out there in quite a while.” I sniffed and looked toward the street. “I can’t stay here long. I told my new neighbor I’d come visit her this evening.”
“Them bootleggers that moved one house over from y’all?” Daddy asked in a harsh tone.
“Uh-huh.”
“You better be careful with folks in that line of business, not to mention the kind of heathens they ply with drinks and no telling what all else! They can pull a whole bale of wool over your eyes!” he warned, wagging one of his canes in my face. “We ain’t supposed to bury you, you supposed to bury us.”
“You don’t need to go overboard,” I said, giving him an annoyed look. “I’m always careful. Nobody has pulled the wool over my eyes yet, so don’t worry about me.”
I stayed about fifteen minutes and would have stayed a little longer if I hadn’t seen Yvonne, dragging her feet up the street toward her house. I didn’t know her too well yet, but it was obvious to me that she was distressed about something. And it was no wonder. If I worked in a dingy grill like Cunningham’s, had lost my parents, and was married to a pug-ugly like Milton, I’d be distressed every day.
I didn’t like being nosy, but I wanted to know what, if anything, was going on for her to be looking so sad. When I got to my house, I decided to give her enough time to catch her breath and relax for a few minutes before I joined her.
Since Odell wasn’t coming home for supper, I didn’t have to worry about cooking, so I finished off what was left of the pig feet and turnip greens we’d had the night before. By the time I finally decided to go next door, an hour had passed. I was surprised to see at least a dozen people with drinks in their hands already in the house when I got there. “Oh, hi, Joyce. I’m glad you decided to come over,” Yvonne greeted with a big smile and a one-armed hug. I was glad to see that she didn’t look the least bit distressed now.
“Are you all right now? I saw you earlier this evening and you seemed upset.”
At first Yvonne gave me a blank stare. Then she slapped her forehead and rolled her eyes. “Oh that? Pffft! A man I waited on this afternoon snuck out before I brought him his check so Mr. Cunningham docked my pay. Milton and Willie Frank went to that no-paying customer’s house with a baseball bat a little while ago. They straightened him out and I got my money back and then some. I’m feeling fine now, but thanks for asking.”
“I hope they didn’t hurt that man. . . .”
“Oh, he’s fine. They didn’t even have to use that bat. Now come on in here and make yourself comfortable.” Yvonne waved me to the couch.
“Yvonne, go get Joyce a drink,” Milton ordered, walking into the room. “And while you at it, bring me another one too.”
I plopped down on the couch next to their snaggle-tooth white friend, Willie Frank. He had on shoes this time, but he smelled like sawdust. The bibbed cap on his head had so many stains I couldn’t tell what color it was. His long straight blond hair flopped down over his forehead. “Joyce, Willie Frank left the last time before you got to know much about him. As you can see, he ain’t colored, but he been my ace boon coon for a long time! Ain’t that right, white boy?” Milton yelled. Willie Frank smiled and bobbed his head up and down like a rooster. “Anyway, him and his brothers and daddy make some damn good liquor. Their homebrewed beer is for beginners, sissies, and folks that can’t hold much alcohol. But if you really want to get sure enough loose, you need some of their white lightning. It’s the highest-proof moonshine in the county.”
&nbs
p; Willie Frank tipped his cap. “It’s good to see you again, Joyce. I enjoyed your company the last time I seen you,” he said, grinning with his eyes twinkling.
“It’s good to see you again too,” I said.
Willie Frank blinked and looked toward the door. “Is your husband coming later?”
“Uh-uh. He wanted to, but he had to go check on his sickly daddy,” I replied.
“Well, tell him that the next time I come this way, I’m going to bring him a mess of that fishing bait doughball from the batch I’m going to make in a few days. Maybe he’ll start catching more fish instead of spending all that time on the bank and coming home emptyhanded most of the time.”
Before I could say anything else, Yvonne handed me a jar filled to the brim with a drink that had such a harsh smell it irritated the insides of my nostrils. I got a sharp buzz within seconds after I took the first sip. “This is white lightning. We didn’t have none them other times y’all was here. Don’t drink it too fast or you’ll be sorry,” she warned. “I ain’t had but a few swallows and my head is spinning like a whirlpool.” She threw her head back and laughed long and loud.
“Too late,” I giggled. Not only was my head already spinning, my whole body was tingling, all the way down to my toes. And I liked it.
Willie Frank tipped his cap again before he stood up and staggered to the other side of the room where Milton was. They hugged and clapped each other on the back, and then their lips started moving real fast. Somebody was blowing on a harmonica and everybody else was talking at the same time. There was so much noise, I couldn’t hear what people were saying. Not that I wanted to know. I had a feeling that some of the guests had more disturbing pasts than Willie Frank. Less than two minutes after he had left the couch, an elderly woman in a paisley dress and a hat that looked like the lid off a lard bucket flopped down next to me. She wore the same rose-scented sachet my mama was so fond of. It took a few moments for me to realize who she was: Aunt Mattie, the madam who operated the whorehouse where Odell used to work. Some folks claimed she was the richest colored person in town. Odell never liked to talk about his experience with her and that was just fine with me. As far as I was concerned, his past was his business. But I didn’t like the fact that he had even associated with a hoodlum like Aunt Mattie. Especially after I’d heard the rumor that she’d chopped up her husband and buried him in her backyard. “Hello, Aunt Mattie,” I greeted. “How are you doing these days?”