Mick didn’t want to go to the cemetery and neither did Blanche. When they arrived at the Barker house for the after-funeral gathering, it was already nearly full of people juggling paper plates and plastic cups. The house smelled of ham and turkey, greens, pig feet, chitterlings, corn bread, garlic, and lesser spices that made Blanche’s stomach growl. She worked her way toward the sideboard spread, with Mick right behind her.
Blanche filled a paper plate and found a not-too-crowded corner where she could stand and eat. She exchanged greetings with folk she knew and didn’t know. All around her people were talking about everything from buying a house to how to get rid of bill collectors. Whatever sadness there was for Miz Barker had been left at the funeral home in favor of celebrating her life with a plateful of good food. Chili and death, she thought.
Pam was moving through the room thanking people for coming. She looked worn to the bone. Blanche drew her away, made her sit down and sip some tea. But Pam couldn’t stop talking. It was as though words were a fence she’d built between herself and her grief, one that needed constant repair.
“She wouldn’t have liked all these people in her house. She’d talk to people all day in the store. But only family came here.”
“What about Ray-Ray? Didn’t he come here, too?”
“Yeah. But he was family as far as she was concerned. He came by the store to see Gran right before he died, you know. Him and his friend.”
“His friend?” Blanche felt the blood draining from her face. “What friend?”
Pam shook her head. “I didn’t know him. Ray-Ray said he needed to talk to Gran, so I didn’t hang around. Lots of people did that, you know, came by the store like they needed to buy something, but really they came to talk to Gran. I think that’s why she was so irritable about me being in the store with her, afraid I’d stop people from talking. Once I figured that out, I knew when to leave for a while.”
“So was Ray-Ray’s friend just a friend, or…” Blanche tried not to seem too eager to hear Pam’s answer.
“Boyfriend. Cute little dude. Kinda clean cut. Had on a sharp old suit. I think Ray-Ray called him Donnie. I could tell they had a thing going from the way Ray-Ray looked at him. Didn’t faze Gran. She was just glad to see Ray-Ray. And now they’re both dead.” Pam sighed, a long, fluttery sigh.
Blanche hardly heard what Pam was saying. She was suddenly so cold, she was sure she’d see her breath if she spoke. The picture of Donnie that had formed and faded in her mind when she’d talked with Othello earlier was returning in full color. She saw him in Miz Barker’s store with Ray-Ray, then again days later, alone with Miz Barker. Did his slap cause her heart attack, or was it the shock of being slapped by her Ray-Ray’s lover that had killed her?
“…first time I ever saw Gran go around the house and check the doors and windows before she went to bed. It was like she knew death was coming and was trying to lock it out. But it didn’t work, did it?” Tears sprang to Pam’s eyes. She excused herself and ran quickly up the stairs.
Blanche wanted to reach out to Pam, but she was afraid of blurting out what she was seeing in her mind’s eye about who had killed her old friend and why. It would hurt Pam too much right now. And besides, Blanche wanted to be sure. Really sure.
“Blanche!” Aminata tapped Blanche’s shoulder and made her jump. Blanche locked thoughts of Donnie in the back of her mind and nervously turned to Aminata.
“How you doin’?” they asked simultaneously, and laughed about it.
“You first,” Aminata said. “Musta been terrible seeing that boy kill himself like that. You still look kinda strained around the eyes.”
Blanche nodded. “Thanks for looking out for the kids. I really appreciate it.”
“I was glad to do it. I’m half in love with that son of yours anyway, you know. I only wish my own son…”
Blanche was tempted to change the subject, but figured that’s what most people likely did to Aminata, as though her son were a birth defect too ugly to talk about.
“How is your boy holding up, Aminata?”
Aminata crossed her arms. “Sometimes I think he’s doing better than me. Sometimes…I don’t know. Every time I see him, I see a change. Not growing-up kinda change. More like he’s learning things in there that…I still can’t believe it, you know. I still wake up thinking I dreamed the whole thing, expecting to hear him in the…I raised that boy to respect life, to love life. He was so gentle and sweet when he was little that he could have been…” Aminata bit her lip and lowered her eyes.
Blanche grasped her hand hard. “It’s not your fault, honey,” she said.
“That’s what Othello always says. But God! I wish…” The pain on Aminata’s face was as fresh as if her son had just been arrested. “If I’d just known what lead can do, I’d…”
“That’s just it,” Blanche said, remembering what her children had said to her about Marc Brindle. “If you had known, you’d have done something. You couldn’t do something about what you didn’t know, honey.”
Aminata squeezed Blanche’s hand, then released it. “Most people don’t ask me about him.” She gave Blanche a sidelong look. “Afraid I’ll go off on my son thing,” she said with a smile that made Blanche aware of how foolish it was to assume you knew more about a person than the person knew about herself.
“Except for Othello,” Aminata added. “He always asks. Always listens.”
They both looked across the room at him. Othello was searching Aminata’s face with his eyes. Did he feel her wave of unhappiness from that far away?
“You may be half in love with Malik, but I’m half in love with Othello, so that makes us even,” Blanche said, to her own surprise.
Aminata nodded. “He is special.”
He grinned when he saw Aminata smile, as though his smile were as dependent on hers as moonlight on sunlight.
“I really got lucky.”
“It ain’t just luck,” Blanche said, and suddenly understood how her jealousy of Aminata was related to Malik becoming very much his own person, with his own ideas, and secrets that didn’t include or revolve around her. This woman was his friend. Lead poisoning was his issue, both chosen without the least bit of concern for her two cents worth of opinion.
“But how are you feeling, Blanche? Musta been awful being in that house.”
“I’m okay. I had a good cry, so I’m all right, for now.” She told Aminata about the children’s arms around her as she sobbed. “It felt strange to be the one getting the comfort.”
Aminata nodded. “They’re growing up. I can already see what kind of man Malik is going to be. Working with him really gives me a lift! You know we found the name of the company that owns those abandoned buildings, right? If we can get the names of the officers tomorrow…I can’t wait to bust these suckers! It’ll be good for the organization, too. Make folks see we can really do something about this mess. ‘And a little child shall lead them,’ isn’t that what they say?”
Aminata left with Othello, and Blanche looked around for Mick. She was talking to Lacey. Blanche wondered what folks in the ’hood thought about Lacey being a very up-front sex worker. She noticed a clutch of women cutting their eyes at Lacey. The set of their shoulders and their expressions made it clear they weren’t admiring her outfit, sharp as it was. Had Lacey noticed? Did it matter to her?
“Hey.” Blanche put her arm around Lacey’s waist. “You make a mean cup of tea, honey!”
Lacey laughed. “And you can suck it up, too, girl!”
“We were just talking about Ray-Ray and Miz Barker, their being friends and dying so close to each other,” Lacey told Blanche.
“He came to see her right before she died,” Blanche said. The Donnie door in Blanche’s mind threatened to swing open. She leaned firmly against it.
“Weird,” Mick said. “Like they were saying good-bye to each other.”
Blanche and Lacey exchanged amused looks in memory of when they’d believed life lined up that neatly.
But Blanche was aware of the true connection between Ray-Ray’s and Miz Barker’s deaths: The same hand raised against both of them. One hand belonging to one man. One man. Cold once again crept up Blanche’s spine and encircled her midriff as though she’d stepped into a walk-in freezer. Beneath the ice, a whole sea of emotions swirled through her—anger at her own stupidity, a sadness for what had happened to Miz Barker and how it might have been prevented a fury against Donnie and everyone else involved in the search for that foul tape, a longing to just sit down alone somewhere and cry.
Lacey and Mick switched to talking about how sad it was when all the old folks started to die off, and naming all the recently dead elders from the old neighborhood. Blanche was hardly present. She hoped that what was happening inside of her wasn’t written on her face. Apparently it was.
Lacey lay her hand on Blanche’s arms. “Sweetie, you’re looking a little peaked. You had a real shock yesterday. You need to take it easy for a couple of days.”
Blanche left, but she didn’t head for home and rest. She had to meet Bea Richards.
Blanche was early. She slowed her steps and watched the gypsy cab drivers who worked the Tropical Foods market. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a regular cab outside of this store. The gypsy drivers looked for fares in both directions—making reservations for after-shopping rides with folks going in the store, and asking people leaving the market loaded down with bags if they needed a ride. In the few years she’d lived here, the gypsy drivers had changed from older American-born black men to younger men from Africa and the Caribbean, especially from Haiti. Had the older men moved on to a spot where they made more money? She hoped so but doubted it. Retired? On what? Mr. Raymond, a black Santa Claus look-alike who was her usual gypsy driver, was just pulling off.
“Hey, Miz North Carolina!” he called as he rolled by with two women in the backseat and the front passenger seat full of grocery bags.
“Hey, how you doin’, Mr. Raymond?”
“Tryin’ to make a dollar, tryin’ to make a dollar.” He waved and kept on going.
Mr. Raymond’s words repeated in her head as she watched two people—one on either side of the street. One was trying to sell homemade baked goods; the other was offering to carry people’s groceries to their car, their house, or even the bus stop for a quarter a bag. Where were all these lazy, shiftless, don’t-want-to-work black folks politicians and newspapers were always going on about? All around, there were street vendors selling everything from incense to little black dolls in hand-crocheted outfits. Making work, she thought: doing what poor black people did to get money enough to get by. She’d read there’d been a lot of jobs created in Boston. What they didn’t say was who had gotten those jobs. She rarely saw black people working construction in this town, and there weren’t even that many blacks in the post office. She could easily count on one hand the number of black salesclerks she dealt with downtown or at the malls. The last time black people had full employment in America was during slavery. She joined the stream of mostly women and children entering the market and was immediately in another world.
The smell of fruit in various stages of decay, the peppery aroma of spices both known and unknown, the earthy odor of roots not native to these parts reminded her of barefoot women cooking over old fires. Languages swirled around her: Spanish, Jamaican patois, Portuguese, African languages she ached to recognize. She felt herself an ingredient in a rich gumbo, simmering down to a nourishing thickness in a broth made of all their juices.
A slim, honey-brown woman in a red sweater rolled a shopping cart up to Blanche.
“Bea Richards?”
Bea nodded and wheeled her cart down the aisle. Blanche wished she had a bit more information about Bea. For all she knew, Bea could be one of what Ardell called the Sanctified Suckers: women silly enough to fall for the kind of minister who considered screwing as many women in the congregation as possible a fringe benefit of his job as God’s go-between. Bea didn’t look like a fool—but what did a fool look like? Blanche vowed not to say anything sharp, no matter how tired Bea’s story.
Bea gave Blanche a sidelong glance. “You’re maybe thinking I’m some kinda kook, meeting you here like this.” They stood at the end of the meat counter in the back of the store. From there they could see who was seeing them.
“No, I don’t think it’s kooky. I know what Samuelson’s like.”
Bea carefully examined a woman checking out the nearby pork roasts.
“He come to see me. Told me not to talk to anybody about his business. Told me too much talking could be bad for my health. Course, he didn’t stop me talking. I just try to be more careful.” She gave Blanche a slightly panicky look. “You did say you weren’t a member?”
“No, no. I’m not a member. I just wanna know…”
“Who told you to talk to me? Oh yes, Charlotte.” Bea’s eyes followed a woman who’d looked in their direction when she passed by.
“Why did you leave the church?” Blanche asked her.
“Temple,” Bea corrected her. “I dreamed about him, you see. Saw him plain as I see you. Didn’t know who he was until I saw his picture in the paper a week later. I knew right off I was meant to join him, to help him in his mission.”
“His mission?”
“To bring all religions and races together. At least that’s what he said he wanted to do. Now I know better.” Bea’s eyes narrowed. “Now I know…”
Blanche waited for Bea to go on for as long as she could. “Know what?” Blanche asked her.
Bea clutched the handle of her shopping cart until her knuckles stood out like huge marbles. “I gave that man five years of my life. Five years…I did everything for that man.”
Blanche stifled a yawn. He-did-me-wrong stories were never her favorites.
“I didn’t have no family here, no children. All my spare time went to working for the Temple. I brought in new members, did the typing, and even swept up sometimes.”
“What happened?” Blanche was eager to have it all told and over with so that she could go home.
“I tried to tell people when I left the Temple, but nobody listened to me. I even wrote a letter to the newspaper. But they didn’t print it.”
Blanche was two seconds short of tearing at her hair and running from the store. “I really want to know what—”
“In time,” Bea interrupted, “my relationship with Maurice Samuelson became what you might call close.”
Blanche grimaced.
“Nothing improper!” Bea said. “I’m not that kinda woman.” She drew herself up. “Besides, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know how some of these ministers like to take advantage. But Maurice was devil enough to seem sincere. In fact, he asked me to marry him. This was before he married the wife he got now.”
“Oh!” Blanche said, beginning at last to sense a little more than just the usual ministerial sex story. “What happened?”
“The Lord saved me from the devil’s clutches, that’s what happened! Well, like I said, I don’t have no family, but I got friends. Good friends. Right here in Boston and down in Delaware. That’s where I’m from.
“Course, when I decided to marry Maurice, I called my dearest friend, Rachel, to tell her the news. She still lives in Delaware. That’s when she told me about Laconia Waterford and poor Murleen.”
“Who are they?” Blanche was having a harder and harder time concentrating as it began to sound like the same old story with a few extra twists.
“Didn’t matter that she wasn’t alive. She was dead because of what he did to her.”
“Excuse me?”
“She was already dead when he asked me to marry him, you see, but it was what killed the woman that made me know he was just a devil pretending to be a man of God.”
Blanche didn’t think it was Bea’s friend who was dead, but who the hell was? She’d have to bluff it.
“What did he do to her?”
“Poor woman come home and find that low-down negro
in their marriage bed with her own daughter.”
“What woman? Laconia or Murleen?”
Bea gave her a sharp look. “I don’t like to keep repeating myself,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I’m kinda tired today, and I got lost when you were telling me about…”
“What I’m telling you is that Maurice Samuelson married a woman down in Delaware. Her name was Laconia Waterford. She was a widow with a grown daughter, name of Murleen. You understand me this time?”
Blanche nodded.
“Well, Laconia had a heart attack and died when she come home and found Maurice in bed with poor Murleen, who was born slow as a white-faced mule. After Laconia died, Maurice put poor Murleen in an institution for the retarded! She’s still there, for all I know. Folks down Delaware was quite upset about it. That’s why that Samuelson negro left Delaware and come here to do the devil’s work, after he got all Laconia Waterford’s savings and insurance money and deserted her only child by a previous marriage.
“Course I gave him a piece of my mind, trying to marry me after what he did to that woman and her child! I wasn’t having none of that, and I told him so, you can be sure!”
Blanche stared at Bea for a moment, partly hypnotized by her story and half hoping to hear something more, something she could use—like Samuelson’s stealing the money instead of having it left to him, something that made him ask “How high?” when Brindle said “Jump.”
“How old a child was Murleen?” she asked Bea.
“Wasn’t no child by then, except in her mind.”
So that’s that, Blanche thought. But it was kinda funny. Samuelson must have got the shock of his life when Bea got in his face with his skanky business. Blanche could see why he didn’t want it talked around town. But it couldn’t hurt him in the way she needed to.
“Well, I sure thank you for telling me about him,” Blanche said. “If this doesn’t convince my friend to stay out of that Temple, nothing will.”
“You send her to see me! I don’t care what that sinful man says, I’m gonna tell the truth and shame that devil!”
“You be careful,” Blanche said as they parted.
Blanche Cleans Up Page 25