I motion at this embodiment of veiled evil and say, “She looks like Elizabeth Taylor.”
“With all that big red hair? Hair so red she looked like I Love Lucy.”
She is beautiful, as was my mother. Owns a beauty that would be hard to control.
I say, “She does have a lot of hair.”
“You could hike up one side of her hair, ski down the other.”
“Guess there is no vertical limit on hairstyles out here.”
“Not at all. Would have to ride a gondola to get to the top of that do.”
“What is she?”
“Her momma was mulatto and Choctaw. They think her father might’ve been Irish because of the red hair. Either way, that one-drop rule kept her in her place. She black.”
“She looks like a white woman.”
“She tried to pass.”
“Did she?”
“Yup. Some of the old folks used to get drunk and whisper that her first husband left her down in Lower Alabama, abandoned her and her two babies when he found out she wasn’t as pure as the driven snow. She didn’t like white people and she was always calling dark-skinned blacks out of their name, always yelled and screamed and talked with a lot of anger.”
I ask, “Where were the men?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did Willie Esther ever have another husband, a boyfriend or anything?”
“Time to time, some men who looked like they worked at a coal mine or in construction came by. Men who were exposed to chemicals or asbestos or coal or something that damaged their lungs. They’d sit outside and drink scotch and smoke and swat mosquitoes. But none that stayed the night or she went to spend the night with.”
“So you never saw her with a man.”
“From what I hear, none of the men around here were good enough for her. She thought she was still who she used to be before she was run out of Lower Alabama, thought she was special, above everybody else. And ended up scrubbing toilets to make a dime.”
Willie Esther. Tried to pass. Tried to reinvent herself, be someone else, and failed.
Kenya says, “She ended up cleaning white folks’ houses. Bet that had to fuck with her.”
“I suppose so.”
I put the picture down, pick up a red book. Odenville: A History of Our Town, 1821-1992.
Kenya says, “One-fifty-one and one-sixty-nine.”
“What?”
“If you want to see any black people in that history book, page one-fifty-one and page one-sixty-nine. We show up in the seventies.” She chuckles. “On the men and women high-school basketball teams. Two brothers on page one-fifty-one. A sister on page one-sixty-nine.”
“Damn. This close to the Civil Rights movement and… two pages?”
“Not two pages, two pictures. That’s it. Look at that and you think we showed up in the seventies. Group pictures at that. Showed up as hood ornaments for the basketball team.”
I say, “Better than seeing photographs of brothers hanging from a tree.”
“This ain’t where you come to get enlightened and have in-depth discussions about slavery, the Middle Passage, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They ain’t heard of the Middle Passage and think MLK—well, it’s not like Odenville shuts down to celebrate King’s birthday. You write about what you care about. What you want to remember. History should be inclusive and honest. Even if it’s ugly. If not, it’s one-sided and half-truths are propaganda. My daddy told me that’s why we have to keep our own records, write our own history. Their history is not our history.”
I spy as Kenya rambles in her neo-soul political tone.
Nothing about this family in that document. Nothing about Genevieve.
Kenya says, “I really feel for the sister on the basketball team.”
“Because she was the only black?”
“Had to be horrible playing sports in this humidity with a press-and-curl in the seventies.”
I put the book down, go toward the window and stare out at a peaceful territory that might see Darwin’s The Origin of Species as a frontal assault on the dogma of God’s creation of mankind. The window is single pane; its curtains are thin, sun-beaten, hues ranging from their original red to a faded pink, frayed and thin where they have been victim of the most heat. The single-pane windows are smudged, fingerprints inside, dirt on the outside.
I ask, “Why did Willie Esther have so much hate?”
“Racial purity is a big deal to some people. Not just white people. Black people want black people to be with black people. Sexual segregation. That’s what America teaches us to do the best, hate others because they are different and in the meantime learn to hate ourselves.”
“You’re harsh.”
“You see the cute little Confederate flags in the businesses on 411? This is ‘Bama, Boo. We learned from the best of the worst.”
“I don’t get it. Why would Willie Esther hate her offspring like that?”
“You’re not listening.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“The South is a bitch to its colored children. You have to develop thick skin or the South can be a motherfucker. Maybe she couldn’t handle it, got treated bad and that was all she knew. She just passed her anger on down the family tree. Horrible things happened to her mother.”
“Like what?”
“The kind of horrible things that happen to women.”
I wait without asking, hoping she will say, and at the same time hoping she won’t.
She speaks very matter of fact, “First off, Willie Esther’s mother was raped when she was a virgin. Got knocked up with Willie Esther.”
“Willie Esther…”
She whispers, “Was a rape baby.”
“Damn.”
“And there was a rumor that Willie Esther was raped too. That’s when she was hiding out in Lower Alabama. After her husband left, after they found out she was a lying-ass colored girl, she was raped. Some people think that grief-stricken motherfucker sent the men over to do it. Southern-fried justice. After they ran her out of town, she came up here.”
It takes me a moment to regroup. “This is getting to be a bit much to digest.”
“Especially with bull’s nuts on your stomach.”
“Especially.”
“Guess you don’t want a plate of chit’lins.”
“Now I know what I smell. Thought the plumbing was backed up.”
“Willie Esther. Rejected by white people and scared to be a black woman. Yep, she tried to run away from who she was, tried to be somebody else, failed like you wouldn’t believe.”
Astonished, I blink a few times, shake my head and tug at my goatee.
She goes on. “A lot of foul things happened, especially in ‘Bama. Man or woman, there was a time, with all the open racial hostility, that it was dangerous for anybody black to be black.”
My lips move but no words escape.
She clears her throat and rocks, tells me, “So you can see why Willie Esther wasn’t too fond of the situation between Delphinie and Gravedigger. She was an outcast. Then Delphinie went off and had all those half-breed babies and ended up killed on the living room floor.”
I take a breath.
“Add this to the historical buffet,” she says. “One of those rapes produced Delphinie.”
My breathing ceases for a moment.
Shakespearian thoughts rise. Shows I have seen flash before my eyes. Oedipus kills his father, fornicates with his mother. Medea butchers her children and feeds them to their faithless, philandering father. At the end of Hamlet there are nine corpses onstage, some poisoned, some run through on swords. Richard III slays his nephews, boys ages nine and eleven.
The evil things that Kenya has told me are worse than any theatrical performance.
My heart swells with empathy for Genevieve. I own the same compassion for Kenya.
I ask, “Any pictures of Delphinie around here?”
Kenya walks across the room, opens and closes a
few drawers, heads down the hallway into a bedroom, moves things around, comes back with Polaroid pictures, hands them to me.
She says, “Strange going through dead folks’ things. Never know what you might find.”
In one photo their mother is a teenager, kind and gentle with long, wavy hair. Very Choctaw. Same compact and sensual body as Genevieve. Others show the volcanic fire in her eyes, the growing desires that she could not hide. In another Delphinie wears a tight dress on a fuller figure. She has had many children between the two pictures. The faded Polaroid shows the weariness in her eyes, but her smile sings that the fire inside her remains unquenched.
Kenya says, “She always kept her hair long. That was her pride and joy.”
I ask, “Any photos of Genevieve?”
“No photos of LaKeisha Shauna Smith here. Think Willie Esther got mad and burned them up or something. Grandpa Fred might have a few over at his house. You should go see them.”
“What about pictures of you?”
“I’ll never show anybody old pictures of me. Bone thin, black, and flat-chested with all that acne, no way. Thank God I put on some weight and grew some hips and a little ass.”
“And the breasts.”
“Gift from Deuce. Upgraded for him. That fool loves breasts. Used to… never mind.”
My eyes meet hers. I imagine things illicit. Envy broils my adulterous flesh.
I hand the pictures back to Kenya; she slams the pictures on the kitchen table, her face filled with lines, her thoughts on Deuce. Heat rises inside of me. My jealousy startles me.
Again I should leave. But I find reason to stay and compromise what is left of my soul.
I say, “Genevieve looks like her mother. Jimmy Lee does too.”
“Jimmy Lee, Jabari, J-Bo, Darius, they all look alike. I take after my daddy’s side.”
“You’re the tallest woman here.”
She says, “Tallest in the family. A Jolly Black Giant in a family of Lilliputians.”
The one-armed and legless old man is out there by the graveyard, his eyes on the freshest of the graves, cigarette smoke pluming around his head. Daring death plain and clear.
I tell Kenya, “Grandpa Fred is an interesting character.”
“We call him Tree Stump.”
“That’s cold-blooded.”
“Not to his face.”
“Guess that makes it better.”
“Funerals are excitement for him. Gives old people like him a reason to get out and roll around. All he does is drink Miller Lite and watch Vietnam War movies from sunup to sundown.”
“Is that so?”
“He’s still fighting a war.” Kenya motions at Grandpa Fred. “He’s one of the lucky ones.”
“What do you mean?”
“The government is wrong for the way veterans are treated. Men and women serve this country, come back, and are basically homeless. Or invalids with no way to support their family.”
She fidgets, moves away, soft stroll taking her across the room. She toys with her wild hair, straightens up things that need no straightening, gives attention to everything but me.
She asks, “What did you come in here for besides the testicle tasting?”
“To see you.”
“You don’t have to come in here to test the temperature. I know you love your wife. I know you’re scared that I might trip out. No matter how I feel about them, this is my family, remember that. We both know what we did was wrong. The terrified look on your face when you had busted your nut said it all. I know it wasn’t shit to you. It wasn’t shit to me.”
“Kenya—”
“You’ve seen me. Now go back to your wife.”
I stand there, nervous. She ignores me.
I tell her, “Genevieve was outside your room. She heard you.”
“Everybody in the Tut heard me.” Kenya shrugs. “Hard to be quiet when you getting dicked down like that. Dick like that and she can’t have an orgasm? I find that hard to believe.”
“You’re calling me a liar?”
“Let me tell you this, Daddy Long Stroke. Game recognizes game.”
She continues cleaning, now jittery. She cares what Genevieve knows.
Hands in pockets, I rock side-to-side, change the subject. “You’re going to the wake?”
“I’ll go to the funeral tomorrow. Today my job is to stay and watch the house, as if there were anything worth watching. Always thinks somebody will steal their mason jars or that picture of those dogs playing poker.” She moves back to the window. “I get to play Donna Reed and meet anybody who comes by with food. Make sure food is heated up when they all come back.”
I drift and stand next to Kenya, close enough to inhale her aroma, but not close enough to touch, not so close that if anyone comes in eyebrows will rise. We spy on Odenville. Genevieve does not come toward the trailer. Either her memories, or the essence of Willie Esther, causes her to avoid what’s inside. At our home in Los Angeles, outside my bedroom window, we have a view of the sun rising over downtown. At night we go to bed with the city’s skyline within reach. What I see, in my eyes, is morbid. Not to mention atrocious urban planning. I cannot imagine this being my view at sunrise, then watching the tombstones turn into haunting shadows at sunset.
My eyes go to Grandpa Fred. I think a moment then say, “I’m confused.”
“Most of us are.”
“No, I mean. Grandpa Fred. Willie Esther. They both lived here?”
“Hell no. Grandpa Fred used to live in the trailer home next door, but now he lives right there. Small two-bedroom house across the street. He’s moving on up like George and Weezy.”
With sarcasm, she motions at a simple white home facing the same cemetery. A wheelchair ramp runs from the driveway to its porch. An American flag waves out front.
I say, “His son and Genevieve’s mother… were next-door neighbors?”
“Small community. When the hormones are raging, not a lot of options. Grandpa Fred and Willie Esther never cared for each other. They’d spit in the wind before they spoke.”
“Why the unfriendliness?”
Kenya rubs her hand across her dark and sensual skin, telling me of their issues.
She says, “So, the story goes that when Gravedigger Smith had caught a case of Jungle Fever with Delphinie Savage, it was like the Hatfields versus the McCoys meets Romeo and Juliet. As far as everybody was concerned, from what I heard, that made them both tainted.”
“Tainted?”
“Tainted. She had a white magic stick inside her, so that was all she wrote so far as black men. Doubt if she had anything to pick from worth talking about. He was probably looked at as a race traitor. Doubt if a white woman wanted him after he’d been into the heart of Africa.”
It takes me back to Pasadena. It was the same way. The things we forget as we ride the wings of Affirmative Action into our own clouds. I digest this history. “Almost forty years ago.”
“Forty years, not that long ago. If Gravedigger was a black man and Delphinie was a Miss Daisy, no telling what would’ve happened to him. Brothers used to get lynched for whistling at Miss Ann or not stepping off the sidewalk fast enough. Sleeping with? Scary thought, huh?”
I rub my goatee. “Times have changed.”
“Not as much as you think. There are people here who are still fighting the Civil War. They’re set in their ways and holding onto things that are long since past. Don’t matter about right or wrong. They wave that Confederate flag like it’s a religion. Shit, they need to pull the troops out of Iraq and send them to ‘Bama, Mississippi, and Georgia.”
“Okay, where did Gravedigger and Delphinie move to after they got married?”
“Moved? They lived right here.”
“In this trailer?”
“Gravedigger married Delphinie and they moved their broke asses right in here.”
I nod. Those few words explain a lot. I didn’t understand how their mother was married to Gravedigger but ended up getting kill
ed in this trailer. Now I do. This was everybody’s home.
Kenya goes on, “But, from what I’ve heard, Delphinie would go away, just walk out the front door with her purse, leave and not come back for a long time, sometimes weeks.”
“She’d just… take the children and leave?”
Genevieve Page 20