Before Momma called again, I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I stumbled over the books and papers that I had left on the floor the night before. I walked over to the wash basin, poured it full of water, and then splashed enough on my face to remove the night’s sleep. My eyes were puffy, sleep creeping out of the corners.
Finally, I washed my face with lye soap and combed my hair back, parting it down the middle and making two large braids. I wet my finger with a little spit to slick down the untamed hairs sticking out at my temples. The smell of Momma’s buttermilk biscuits and sausage crept into the bedroom and lured me into the kitchen.
I had barely started my breakfast when Momma announced that I was going to go with her to Mrs. Ferguson’s house, the white lady she worked for. Twice a week for as long as I could remember, Momma washed and ironed for a couple who lived two miles down the road. The Fergusons were not rich when measured against some of the other white folks, but they were modestly wealthy compared to the colored folk I knew. Mrs. Ferguson always needed help.
“Mae Lou,” she’d say, “I don’t know how you can work like that. I can’t do it. I’ve got just enough time to stay beautiful for Mr. Ferguson.” And then she’d grin. I’d turn and roll my eyes so no one could see me. Until she’d married Mr. Ferguson, she had been used to the service of maids and butlers; her parents were wealthy slave owners and had once housed over one hundred slaves on their land, spread out over two hundred acres.
Momma rushed me to finish the breakfast dishes before we left. I had gathered water from the well twice, and still it was not enough. Rush, rush, rush. That’s how Momma did everything. Rushing was all the women in her family had ever done. I was determined that was not the way I was going to do things. Momma preached too much about education for me to work so hard all the time. Slavery was abolished years ago, yet it still seemed to exist in some form or another, even in our own house.
“Gurl, you’d betta act like you want to work today. We got too much to do for you to be playin’. The devil loves an idle mind.”
Momma pulled out one of her starched white aprons and cinched it around her petite waist. She pinned an old straw hat on top of the red bandanna she already had on her head. She had beautiful long black hair with a hint of gray, but she only wore it down on Sundays. “The Lord is the only one I need to dress up for,” she would always say.
As we walked down the road to the Ferguson house, Momma hummed her spirituals, like she did in church. Sometimes she’d hit a note so high and out of tune, the birds would fly away from the trees and I had to keep from covering my ears. I knew it was her way of preparing herself mentally to do a job that she really didn’t enjoy doing, though she would never admit it. Sometimes after everyone had left the kitchen, she’d read her Bible by the kerosene lamp. Sometimes she would read a novel scavenged out of the trash bin that Mrs. Ferguson had thrown away
When we came to a place where Momma noticed blackberries in a patch, she stopped humming and stepped into the brush.
“Let me pick us a few berries while they still in season.”
She handed me a few. I loved the sweetness of blackberries, and thought of the many times Momma had baked a blackberry roll for me only to have Papa help me eat it.
“They are so sweet,” I said, eating them right down.
As always, she said, “Just like you.”
“Sweet, just like you,” I repeated to myself and smiled. On that hot day, as summer was turning to autumn, I didn’t know how few blackberry days of summer were left.
Momma started off again with her short, quick steps. I found myself breaking into a trot to keep up. After awhile my legs burned from my muscles struggling to keep pace. It was too nice of a day to be washing and ironing for some lazy white lady.
When we finally made it to Mrs. Ferguson’s house, our shoes were filthy from the red dirt on the road. “Make sho’ you dust that dirt off your shoes. We don’t want to dirty da floors.”
We went to the back door and Momma knocked several times. “Just a minute,” Mrs. Ferguson responded from inside the house.
Her house was a big white antebellum one with a wide wooden wraparound front porch. The large, oversized windows opened the view from inside to the huge oaks and pines that shaded one side of her yard. On the back side of the property, apple and September pear trees hung full. Her home was secluded among the tobacco and cornfields. Alongside the rolling hills was a pond that reflected the well-kept landscape.
Inside, it was immaculately clean and spacious. The oversized mahogany fireplace in the sitting room gleamed from furniture polish, and right above it was a family portrait painted by a local artist. The hardwood floors were slick from a fresh coat of wax. The furniture was old with a traditional English paisley sofa and a high-back velvet cream chair in the sitting room. Her dining area had a typical drop-leaf table with eight chairs, and a china cabinet with the fine china her mother had given her on the day she married. A painting of a mountain set behind a mansion on a plantation hung on her dining room wall. Yet the shades were pulled down and the house had a cold, unused air to it. I hated being there.
As soon as we stepped onto the porch, Momma took the balled-up handkerchief out of her pocket and dusted off her shoes. Then she handed it to me so that I could do the same.
“Good morning, Mae Lou,” Mrs. Ferguson greeted in her professional, boss-lady voice.
“Morning, ma’am,” Momma answered.
“Glad to see you this morning. I put the clothes on the back porch for you, Mae Lou.”
In her late forties, Mrs. Ferguson was a short, robust, well-dressed woman. Her red hair was always pinned up off her shoulders, and her fine lips painted with a coat of ruby red lipstick that was so thick it could be shared with four other women. From a distance, her lips were the first thing anyone noticed on her.
Momma fabricated a grin and I smiled sourly. I followed her outside to the back porch. We filled up the two big wooden washtubs with boiling water. One of the tubs was for the washing, and the other was for the rinsing. I didn’t understand why the Fergusons did not have a washing machine. Most people who could afford one did.
Momma washed the clothes on a washboard and I dipped them in warm water to rinse the suds away. Then I shook them out and hung them on the clothesline. When they dried, we would fold them and Momma would take them upstairs to put away.
After we were finished, Mrs. Ferguson handed Momma some change. Momma wrapped it in a handkerchief and stuck it in her bra for safekeeping.
When we made it back to our house, I was wet from sweat and my dress clung to my skin. I knew Momma needed a rest, too; her eyes had started to droop.
All the next week, Momma worked tirelessly. To her, rest meant wasting time. So, on Sunday, Aunt Bessie convinced her to come along for a train trip to Washington, D.C. Papa was still living then. So I was shocked when she agreed to go.
The next weekend, instead of going to the Fergusons, Momma took the trip. She caught the noon train with Aunt Bessie to Washington, D.C. When she returned home, her face appeared softer and her eyes danced when she spoke. And less than a month after Papa was buried, she took another trip. She returned glowing again and seemingly even more relaxed than after the first trip. This one must have been extra special. I found her on Monday morning smiling in the kitchen as she took sips from her coffee cup. There was something about the two trips that had made her different.
CHAPTER 4
PEARL
I woke up the next morning before the rooster crowed. My eyes fixated on the ceiling, following the cracks in the camel-colored plaster. The sun was breaking, and Willie was lying naked beside me with one leg hanging over the side of the bed, hissing loud snores with each breath. All week our lovemaking had been aggressive and rough. Inside, my heart was unwelcoming and estranged, searching for the passion that could unite us. Last night was like every night since he’d returned.
By the time we made it back to the apartment, Wi
llie was riled up, breathing hard, twitching, his eyes asking questions and making accusations.
“Willie, this is your first week back. I swear to you I wasn’t singing to that man. I was singing to the crowd.” I poured a glass of water from the icebox and fanned a fly buzzing around my face. I had opened the window because the air was steamy and sweat was dripping down my bosom.
I walked into the bedroom where Willie was sitting on the bed fully dressed, and wagging his head from side to side in anger.
“It damn sho’ didn’t look like it.”
“Come on, Willie; get that out of your head.”
“Pearl, you better not be seeing no other man.”
I stopped in front of the mirror, and saw his eyes blazing with anger. Another tower of rage was building, so I quickly unbuttoned my dress and let it fall off my shoulders onto the floor.
“Can you help me with this, Willie?” I asked.
Eagerly he sprang off the bed to assist me. His thick black fingers struggled to unlace my tight corset, which had kept the roundness of my stomach from protruding.
Willie was helpless when I was naked, and I knew it. I removed everything including my silk panties, and tossed them on the back of the chair. I stood directly in front of him as if I was posing for a photograph. His dark mahogany eyes roved up and down my frame, and I casually twirled around like a ballerina so he could take it all in. I guess I was an exhibitionist by nature, and it left Willie speechless, making him forget about Herman and the nightclub. I unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and he helped me with the rest before unfastening his pants. I sat on the floor in front of him with my thighs parted so he could see what he’d missed in the last two years. As I helped him pull off the long army boots that went up to his knees, I couldn’t help but notice the rising bulge directly in my face. After he slid his pants to the floor, I stood between his legs.
I kissed him lightly on the lips.
“Come to Momma,” I whispered cunningly in his ear, and straddled my legs around his muscular thighs. Willie didn’t know how to hold back, so I coaxed him along the way. He took my heavy breasts, first one and then another, into his mouth and suckled my nipples until they were sore. I ran my fingertips up and down his sweaty back, and he moaned, “Pearl, oh please, Pearl.”
He kneaded my curvy hips, and lifted me onto his long, thick shaft.
“Slow down, Willie.”
He was breathless with want. “I missed you, gurl. I can’t stand the thought of you with nobody else,” he murmured. Beads of sweat slid down his temples, and my breath grew shallow. With each thrust, I lost control. I rode him rough like he wanted me to.
When we were done, I snuggled into his thick, black arms. Still I couldn’t help remembering his anger. I inhaled deeply from the thought of how easily he got pissed off. I thought the service would change him, maybe give him the patience he lacked when it came to a confrontation. When the United States’ colored soldiers entered World War I in 1917, I pleaded with him to join. We had been married for only six months, but that was long enough.
In the beginning, I wanted to love him. The first night I met him, a cold thunderous downpour of rain with driving winds at the core swept leaves across the street. The walk downtown had ruffled my hair and blown it out of place. It was a dreary night, one I did not want to spend alone. I reapplied my lipstick, brushed my hair back in place, and found a seat at the bar. The crowd was thin, more couples than singles. All night men bought me glasses of gin and tonic, but none had the courage to join me at the bar. Willie was the only one. By the time I’d finished my third drink, the bartender was pouring me another.
“Who’s paying for this one?” I asked the bartender.
“Not me, the man over there.”
He pointed at a big black man, whose dark skin was buffed and shiny, standing on the other side of the bar. When I glanced in that direction, I noticed the man staring back at me. The haunted look in his eyes made me a little uneasy. As he strolled toward me, each chiseled muscle appeared to move with the rhythm of his stride.
He introduced himself. “I’ve been watching you all night long.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, missing the warm comfort of a man. I had split with my ole man two months prior, and with the help of gin, even with my apprehension, this new man sounded like a good replacement.
“Can I visit you sometime?” he asked.
He was gorgeously distinctive, and his robust baritone voice vibrated in my ears.
I stayed in an apartment house on the north side of D.C., and even with my singing gigs, could barely pay the rent. The apartment was located in an upper-class neighborhood of colored professionals. It had taken me nearly twelve years to save enough money to move into that neighborhood.
I don’t know why, but I answered, “Yes, why not.” The entire night after that, he admired my beauty.
Willie started visiting me once a week. We would walk around the corner hand in hand, and sometimes he’d take me to a picture show. I liked him. He was a hardworking country boy who held down two jobs. All the other knucklehead Negroes I’d known had been bullshitters. They’d be infatuated in the nightclub, sending me drinks of gin and tonic and telling the waiter to get me whatever I desired, and soon after I agreed to go out with them, the irresponsibility would surface. I’d end up at cheap restaurants snacking on saltine crackers, wishing I had never met them. Even so, I couldn’t fall in love with Willie. He was too uncivilized for me.
“Will you marry me?” he asked one night after I had given my best performance. I’d sung my heart out until beads of sweat dripped down my temples, and the waves in my hair had started to fall. The local colored newspaper, which was published by Howard University Press, said I’d brought the house down and I quote, “Bessie Smith, move over. Pearl has arrived.”
I was in a good mood the next day after hearing about the review, and that night Willie came by. He was wearing a country flannel shirt, trousers and brogan boots.
“Come in,” I said, still overcome with joy after reading the review.
Willie came with two boxes. “Pearl, ain’t no reason for you to keep singing from place to place without some support.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, pouring him a cup of coffee and calculating in my head the odds of finding someone who would take care of me. I’d had many men, and settling down couldn’t have been further from my mind. I didn’t want to be tied down. So far, Willie had been very accepting of my profession. I was thirty-one years old. Most women my age were married and had children. I was still pursuing my dream.
“Willie, I’m not the marrying type. I sing in nightclubs and my best tippers are men.”
He studied my face with his penetrating eyes. “I don’t care how you make a living, gurl. I want you to be mine.”
Genuine love is all I had been searching for my entire life, so I broke down and said yes, without asking questions or thinking things through. The next day, I put on a cream-colored chemise dress, my Mary Jane shoes, and a cream pill hat, and Willie and I marched down to the courthouse and were married.
I never expected him to become so possessive. On the nights he didn’t work, he’d come to the club, sit at a front table and threaten any man who made a pass at me. One night, he left a patron screaming, “You no-good son of a bitch,” as he headed for the door with blood dripping from his lip and an ugly lump on his head.
“Keep yo’ damn hands off my wife,” Willie threatened another man who’d whispered in my ear one night when I had bowed to the crowd and started back to my table.
“Man, I don’t want to hear none of that,” the man said in response.
Before the music started to play, Willie grabbed the guy by the shirt collar and threw him against the wall. Then Willie threw a punch in the fellow’s face, and without blinking, he pulled a switchblade on the guy. Once the owner saw that, he threatened to call the police. I begged the owner not to call, since cops didn’t like coloreds. “Come back and sing on
ce ya get rid of yo’ crazy husband,” the owner told me.
So when the Colored National Guard started recruiting soldiers, I convinced Willie to join. Willie wasn’t too accepting at first. He had reservations about a colored man fighting for a country that basically treated coloreds like shit. But he loved the idea of being a soldier and traveling to some foreign country, even if he never got to fight. Most colored soldiers who enlisted were supply men, clean-up crews and cooks. Willie said that some would be able to fight. Besides, his cousin in Harlem, New York, was joining the 15th New York Voluntary Infantry Regiment. So Willie decided to ride the train to New York and join with his cousin, who had once lived in Washington. I promised to be faithful while he was away. Volunteers were joining from all over. It was the perfect outlet for someone like Willie. Now after two years, I wondered if he had changed at all.
That first night, Willie and I had a drink before leaving the club. The ice never melted in his Scotch on the rocks and I gulped down half of my third gin and tonic.
“It’s time for us to go home, gurl. Been two years since I done did the do,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. Then he rubbed my thigh. I cringed inside. It felt different than it did with Herman, who had sent a warm wave over my flesh earlier in the evening before I performed. He was gentle and smooth.
“How about a dance before we leave?” I said, since Willie didn’t understand anything about getting a girl ready. He lacked the “in betweens.”
“Don’t you want to be with yo’ man? I’ve been gone a long time, gurl.” He squeezed my leg so tightly I almost slapped his hand.
“Of course I do.”
Blackberry Days of Summer Page 3