The Salt Eaters

by Toni Cade Bambara

  “Dammit, James. Obie. Let go. I haven’t finished my—”

  “Let me finish. What I want to say …” He paused and wagged his head like it was a sorrowful thing he had to tell her. She snorted. There was a shred of spinach clinging between his front teeth like a fang, which made it all ridiculous. “Do you have any idea, Velma, how you look when you launch into one of your anecdotes? It’s got to be costing you something to hang on to old pains. Just look at you. Your eyes slit, the cords jump out of your neck, your voice trembles, I expect fire to come blasting out of your nostrils any minute. It takes something out of you, Velma, to keep all them dead moments alive. Why can’t you just … forget … forgive … and always it’s some situation that was over and done with ten, fifteen years ago. But here you are still all fired up about it, still plotting, up to your jaws in ancient shit.”

  “Up to my jaws in ancient shit. Nice line.”

  “Like what you were going on and on about this afternoon. The time your mother wouldn’t let you go to the Freeman birthday party because Palma hadn’t been invited too. Hell, that was twenty years ago, Vee. And for the hundredth time you got to sink your teeth all in it. The invitation with the little elephant and the party hat and how—”

  “So why are you giving me the details of it? We taping this session? If I’ve gone over it a hundred times, surely I’ve got it down pat. You seem to. And get your tie out of my plate, James. Obie.”

  “All I want to know is how long are you going to overload your circuits with—”

  “Until I get my pint of blood,” she said, shaking one hand free and pulling her plate toward her.

  “Mixed metaphor, kiddo.”

  She stretched her face into a grin that ended in a sneer. If he could only see himself, she thought, the shred of spinach reducing him.

  “We’re different people, James. Obie. Somebody shit all over you, you forgive and forget. You start talking about how we’re all damaged and colonialism and the underdeveloped blah blah. That’s why everybody walks all over you.”

  “You’re the only one to ever try to walk over me, Vee.”

  “That’s why I just can’t stay with you. I don’t respect—”

  “That’s not why, Vee.

  “What?”

  “Scared. Anytime you’re not in absolute control, you panic.”

  “Scared?” She chewed with her mouth open, certain the sight would make him shut up or at least turn away. “Shit. Scared of you? Sheeeeet. Obie.”

  “Intimacy. Love. Taking a chance when the issue of control just isn’t—”

  She cut him off with a snort when he seemed to be speaking in imitation of her chewing. People trying to be earnest, serious or supercilious with their fly open or a button dangling from their blouse always cracked her up, made her feel sneery and sympathetic at the same time. She wasn’t sure which she felt. Mama Mae in the doorway doing her mother act while the safety pin in her bra worked itself loose was usually an object of pity. Or Lil James spreading the peanut butter thick and going on and on about the basketball game and how he’d had to sit it out on the bench when the coach knew full well he could save the day, a bugga hanging from his nose, always triggered a wave of compassion that made her move to hug him, though these days he shied away from her sudden bursts of affection.

  She wiped her fingers on the napkin and made her hand available, but her husband did not take it, kept talking, the green leaf waving, mocking. The two hands lay there side by side on the table like a still life. She rubbed his hand and he did not pull it away exactly, just sort of. She rubbed the ridges in his thumbnail and tried to listen to what he was saying now about the atmosphere she set up in the house, what her emotional something or other was doing to the kid, to him, mostly to her. She heard bits of it while floating in and out of the scene, thinking on that first day when she fell in love with his hands or called it love and called it, smirking, falling.

  “Nice statement. Strong,” he had said, easing up on her right side when the curator had stepped away to mount another painting. “I like her work.” His head was cocked sideways and his hands were out framing a particular section of Palma’s collage less than three feet away.

  “And I find you attractive too,” Velma’d said, looking into his face as he turned toward her grinning, stunned, intrigued. And she’d slid her gaze from his face to his hands and knew in that instant that he considered these hands his best feature, his soul, and so she openly admired them and he was captured, under her spell, drawn to her, as though he’d been waiting all his life for just this sign, just this woman, a woman who could get past his clothes, his face, his rap, and recognize that who he was was his hands.

  “Ahh,” she’d said, reaching out and clasping them together in hers, “these are some very special hands,” as though she were entranced, as though usually shy, reserved, ultra cool, she’d simply been overcome by the sight of them, taken outside of herself by the fact of them, moved. She’d let go suddenly as though remembering herself and had smiled inside—“it’s all over, buddy”—standing there holding herself out, a promise of possession, a prize.

  “Can’t we, Vee? Push all the past aside, dump all of it.” His hands were churning the air and the spinach thread was wiggling. “Create a vacuum for good things to rush in. Good things.”

  Like work and no let up and tears in the night. Like being rolled to the edge of the bed, to extremes, clutching a stingy share of the covers and about to drop over the side, like getting up and walking, bare feet on cold floor, round to the other side and climbing in and too mad to snuggle for warmth, freeze. Like going to jail and being forgotten, forgotten, or at least deprioritized cause bail was not as pressing as the printer’s bill. Like raising funds and selling some fool to the community with his heart set on running for public office. Like being called in on five-minute notice after all the interesting decisions had been made, called in out of personal loyalty and expected to break her hump pulling off what the men had decided was crucial for the community good. She could feel his eyes on her. He was looking at her attempts to get settled with such compassion, she wondered if maybe she had bird shit on her shoulder. But she wanted to get it said about those Chinese pajamas. The men. The women. The meeting he’d begrudgingly driven her to at the Patterson Professional Building …

  Once again the women of the ad hoc committee sat down in the Patterson suite. This time not to hear the agenda but to capture it. And the sooner the better, Palma made clear, drumming on the arm of her chair, the cowrie-shell bracelet nicking the wood. Velma patted her sister’s hand and settled down uneasily into the chair Reilly dragged back over the carpet then shoved in hard, locking her under the table leaf, as if to take her out of whatever action the women had decided when they left the men among the ashtrays to caucus in the hall. She felt uncomfortable, damp. There’d been nothing in the machines—no tampons, no napkins, no paper towels, no roll of tissue she could unravel and stuff her panties with. So she slid carefully into the wide bowl of the wooden chair, the wad of rally flyers scratching against her panty hose.

  The women of the YWCA squeezed together on the leather couch, still chafing at the remark that as new members they should curb their “input.” It was then that Daisy Moultrie’s mother called the women to caucus. Daisy and her mother resumed their seats on the sofa under the window and watched Palma, then Jan, for their cue. Jan picked up her ball-point and rolled it between her hands as if still in her crafts room instructing the children in coil and slab technique. Ruby, next to her, was accepting Lonnie Hill’s chair, asking facetiously, “Change of mind or just change of tactic?” for usually—and that evening had been no exception—they were at swords’ points. Lonnie maintained that Ruby and Jan and Velma but especially Ruby ought to be cool, lighten up, give some slack, get back lest the group and its work get a rep as a “woman’s thaang,” and Ruby’s retort a courteous “Nigger please.” Though none of the women, seasoned veterans of that particular war, paid Lonnie too muc
h mind. Eight years before and five years before and three years before Jan had laid back when told to get back and had watched still another organization sacrificed on the altar of male ego. “Whim,” she called it, always pursing her lips just so in the retelling, “whim.” As a student Ruby had been brought up on charges by the Black Student Union, charged with insensitivity, insubordination, uncooperativeness and a poor analysis of “liberation,” meaning she needed to change her aggressive ways and give Black manhood a chance to assert itself. She’d been stunned speechless then but regrouped in time and lately responded to any echo of those Star Chamber proceedings with “Nigguh pul-leeze.”

  The old C.P. women, on the other hand, who’d gotten over in the forties with “as a Negro woman worker I feel” were willing to concede the men might have a point. The Ida B. Well’s Club women had argued impatiently in the ladies’ lounge that the main thing was the work. But like the sorority sisters, they preferred to splinter. They were not at their best, they said, “in mixed company” anyway.

  Jay Patterson was at the lectern again, folding away the scrap of paper the agenda’d been hastily scribbled across into his inside jacket pocket and was quickly introducing the visitor, Marcus Hampden, a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, imported evidently—the women telegraphed a smirk around the room, all but Palma, who openly admired the man—to imply support of Patterson’s run for the county commissioner’s seat.

  Once again the women took up their pens. They listened to Hampden while calculating: money to be raised, mailing lists to be culled, halls to be booked, flyers to be printed up, hours away from school, home, work, sleep to be snatched. Not that he spoke of these things.

  “… covering transportation workers, dock workers, merchant seamen, employees of public works, government …”

  He spoke of the labor movement as the one institution where Black workers, Black people could still effect change. And while he urged them to grasp the significance of new alliances shaping up against the Carter administration, the men smoked and drummed their fingers on the tabletop and the women went on writing: so many receptions to cater, tickets to print, chickens to fry, cakes to box, posters to press, so many gifts to exhort from downtown merchants for raffles and Bingo, ads to place, billboards to commandeer, a hot-plate demo at the auto show, bands to book, a crafts-and-books booth at the school bazaar, a rummage sale, an auction of whatever first edition Old Reilly might still have on his shelves, and what home boy or home-girl-made-good-in-show-biz could be counted on for a benefit show.

  “… economy that can no longer depend on overseas markets and cheap labor, so they’re moving on labor and especially on us again, in order to redivide and subdivide for their own benefit the national income before it gets grabbed up in wages, social services …”

  Hampden had prepared a speech suitable for presentation at a more public forum, but not altogether appropriate for this gathering, a loosely strung group of colleagues, chums, frat brothers, soror sisters, business partners, co-workers, neighbors. A group that sometimes called itself a committee of this organization or a task force of that association or a support group of this cause or an auxiliary of that. A group which Jay Patterson had urged lately to formalize and structure itself for the serious work ahead—meaning his campaign. But the mention of bylaws and charters and incorporation papers fell on deaf ears, Jan had made clear, “woman’s thaang” ringing in her ears and keeping her head as buried in her notes as Lonnie’s was buried in Daisy Moultrie’s blouse. Just a half-hour ago when Jay had made his pitch again, maintaining that somebody—looking straight at Jan and Ruby—ought to get cracking on a rough draft of the bylaws, Lonnie had leaned up in his chair and swung his gaze away from Daisy’s breasts long enough to agree that yes that was certainly a first step and would’ve said more had he not realized, translating the looks his way, that he was setting himself up for work, so he turned to Ruby and almost gave her her cue, her lips parting and teeth opening to form “Nig” before he abruptly cut it off and agreed yes “somebody” should see about all that paper work.

  Jan and Ruby sat together listening with one ear to the trade unionist and with the other proofreading the rough draft Statement of Purpose drawn up in the ladies’ room. Jay Patterson was signaling with his pipe that the speech should not go on too long and to get to the good part. Hampden was now speaking of cutbacks, layoffs, shortages, breakdowns, frozen wages, soaring prices, embezzled pensions and the Social Security money looking funny. Palma was rubbing her thighs suggestively and poking Velma through the spokes of their chairs to check the speaker out. Velma was still trying to sit all the way down without sitting all the way down, settling uneasily on the sodden wad of papers between her thighs.

  He was talking about the need for organizational work of the highest order and the grooming of a new leadership. Jay Patterson tapped ashes from his pipe, missing the ashtray by a good country mile. Hampden was talking about chessboards and getting the knights strategically placed, and Ruby gave a drowsy suck of the teeth for Lonnie’s benefit. “Knights!” It was expected of her.

  “… the yet-untapped resources within the community that are available, available and necessary, necessary and maybe sufficient, if we’d just stop waiting for reparations from dubious benefactors, stop waiting for someone to deliver on the overdue promissory notes …”

  There was a light ripple of applause. And Jay Patterson took the opportunity, while the speaker was making clear that he was committed, serious, ready to deal and while Palma slyly urged him to repeat his name, address and phone number cause it was always a pleasure to work with a brother ready to deal, to resume his position at the lectern and to once again take up the priority agenda item, namely his campaign and their pledge to bring it off. Hampden had barely sat down in the chair Palma had dragged by her foot up close to her own when Patterson cleared his throat and began unfolding a wad of yellow sheets he had fished from his back pocket.

  “Palma Henry,” Palma was saying. “A pleasure to meet you, Marcus,” her hand so far in the man’s lap, he had to suck in to shake it. Velma had to smile, while Ruby took it right on out by muttering “Well, all right, sistuh,” which drew enough mumblings and giggles to drown poor Patterson out.

  “That’s roughly the intro to my first public speech,” Patterson was saying, sadly refolding the papers, since Reilly had dropped his head down and wagged it in disapproval. “And now, ladies, we’d like your input regarding—”

  “We just got through telling you about this ‘input’ shit, Jay,” Ruby said, louder than was necessary. A groan from Daisy Moultrie’s mother was sufficient to stop him. He looked from the women to the men to the visitor, hoping some message about decorum might get read. He turned to Lonnie and the younger men and then to Reilly and the older men, waiting on someone to clear the air so the meeting could take its course.

  “I think,” Daisy Moultrie’s mother began, scooting to the edge of the sofa to plant her pumps neatly on the carpet, “that we need to table the agenda and take up an item you yourself, Jay, have been trying to make us attentive to, namely, it is time we formalized this organization, elected officers, drafted a charter and put ourselves on the public scene as an official group.”

  “Right,” Ruby interjected. “No more hastily called meetings and five-minute commitments and unilaterally drawn-up agenda items. If we’re gonna deal, let’s deal.”

  Velma felt her sister’s fingernail gouging her arm. She hoisted herself up carefully and prayed the makeshift sanitary napkin would not dislodge itself.

  “Now, before we proceed,” Velma said, “we need to be clear, all of us, about the nature of the work. About how things have gotten done in the past and why that pattern has to change.”

  “Don’t be so damn polite,” Ruby interrupted. “It boils down to this. You jokers, and especially you,” cutting her eyes at Lonnie, “never want to take any responsibility for getting down. Mr. Reilly excepted. Now, what that has meant in the past is
that we women have been expected to carry the load.”

  “Well, I for one,” Patterson said quickly, darting his eyes nervously about, fearful of the impression this was bound to make on Marcus Hampden of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, “have always been most appreciative of your input, most grateful for the work that you ladies have done, most—”

  “Insensitive,” Velma said, fairly hissed, wishing Portia Patterson were in attendance and might be bold enough to say in this gathering what she eagerly said about her husband in the privacy of her kitchen: “Not a clue, my friends, as to how the eggs, bacon and biscuits come to appear before him every morning. He makes up lists, see, of all the things he wants done and posts this list on the refrigerator door just like there were little kitchen fairies and yard elves and other magic creatures to get all these things done.” Velma was thinking “abstractionist” summed him up, a perfect label for the habit, the unmindful gap between want and done, demand and get. And abstractionists make good bombardiers, good military beasts, she was thinking, wanted to say, but Palma had warned her not to get metaphorical, to just speak to the issue and to speak plain so they could adjourn and Palma could pack to get on the road.

  “To put it bluntly, Jay, how could you still have the nerve to be talking about running?” Velma demanded. “We’ve been over this ground before. And three times we explained to you that if you refuse to relocate, to move back into the county, you simply can’t run. It’s hard enough trying to sell your lackluster self and nonexistent record to folks. Add to that the fact that you never do a bit of work, put up a bit of money, or ever are prepared to do or be anything but a garden-variety ambitious careerist.”

  “Plus, you’re not even a resident,” Jan inserted.

  “Well, in regard to relocating,” Patterson was trying to keep his face under control, “I thought I made myself quite plain.”