I stayed awhile, but eased my way back into the crap room to take a peek out the window for the police. I lingered in the room too long. After missing another point, her eyes found me. “Don’t y’all shoot til I git back,” she said as she got up. “I need to take care uv some bizness in the kitchen for a minute.” Goosebumps popped out all over me in dreaded expectation.
When she reached a certain quota in her drinking her bitterness surged, and I was the target for her explosive temper. None of the gamblers dared to interfere, especially after that time Lakey spoke up, “Emma, you ought not to whup ‘em lak that.” She flew into a rage and stabbed him in the shoulder with an ice pick and threw him out of the house for “meddlin.”
Beyond the doorway curtain I stood waiting. She walked into the kitchen with a coat hanger and slowly began stretching it out. “Take off yo clothes.”
“Mama, I won’t do it no mo. Pleeze Mama, don’t—”
“I tole you not to call me that! Call me Emma! Now git that shit off. Right now!” When she finished dealing with me, she returned to the crap game and started shooting again. Soon realizing she needed me, she called me back to the crap room, “Git me my bottle.”
The gambling went on into the night. The house was dark, except for the kerosene lamp on the kitchen floor and the one placed near the crap blanket. Terrell Latham had been “swinging” the craps all evening and Emma cursed him with every breath. He hung around every crap game in town and never had more than two dollars to lose. After he was broke, or claimed to be, every time his turn came he sold it to a gambler on the other side of the blanket who already shot. If somebody wanted to give him two or four bits for his turn, well and good, but the players to his right were kept waiting, including Emma.
When he’d swing the craps it caused confusion, and she lit in on him. “Terrell, you ain’ lost but two chickenshit dollars an I’ll be a muthafucka if you gon swing the fuckin dice ever time they git to you. They’s some mo nigguhs who want to shoot an can’t for you holdin up the Gotdam game!”
Unfortunately for Terrell, he got a little too drunk. After a long evening of swinging the dice and getting his ass chewed out, he flopped down in one of the cane bottom chairs and passed out. Everybody and his brother went through his pockets and this time he really was broke.
The game was finally about to end, with Emma winning most of the money. There were only a couple of players left, trying to wrap up the scrappings. Emma had quit shooting and I noticed her staring at Terrell with a mischievous look on her face.
She got up and walked into the kitchen, discovering that our two kittens had shit all over the floor. She rolled several turds onto a piece of paper with the stove poker and brought them back into the crap room. Using a small stick, she smeared the “dookie” all over Terrell’s face, especially heavy around his nose and mustache.
I started laughing but she cautioned me not to be too loud and wake him up before she finished. The few gamblers left in the game had stopped shooting and were watching her too, snickering and trying to keep from laughing out loud. She had figured out an acceptable way to get back at Terrell for being such a nuisance.
With the final touches completed, she opened a bottle on the house and passed it around while everybody waited. After a few minutes, Terrell’s nose began to twitch. With closed eyes, he started wiping his nose and mustache, rubbing his chin and scratching his head. Each time he went through those motions, he spread the shit more and more. Now it was even in his hair. The stink in the room was almost unbearable.
At last Terrell opened his eyes and after a few moments of collecting himself, he finally said in a half-drunken stupor, “Gotdam Emma! You needs ta git rid o’ dem fuckin cats! Looka heah, dem liddle cocksuckers dun shit all over me!”
I laughed so hard I cried, and forgot all about the zinging of the coat hanger.
If some player in the game happened to catch her fancy, she wasn’t slow about giving him the “glad eye.” I knew the moment it happened. She mellowed her intense gambling expression into a sexy, sleepy-eyed bedroom look, and flashed it to him like a lightning bug, “stick aroun.” When she mixed business and pleasure, she’d have two games going at the same time, never missing a shot in either.
It didn’t matter who she kept for her late night lover or how eager she was to go to bed with him, he had to wait his turn. After the others were gone she told him, “I gotta take care uv my o’ man first.” She was never too tired and it was never too late. After they’d pulled a long tour of duty, she picked up the old crap blanket, shook it out, and painstakingly folded it up and laid it to rest underneath her pillow. With her “o’ man” bedded down, it was on to the next item on the agenda.
To get me to go to sleep in a hurry, I got the Raw Hide and Bloody Bones bedtime story. Rushing me beyond the curtain to my cot, “You betta git you some salt an take it to bed witcha so Raw Hide an Bloody Bones won’t gitcha! He loves to git little boys who don’t go to sleep lak they mamas tell ‘em to.
“Bloody Bones is BIGGG! BIG as a bear. An got big o’ bloody chunks uv meat hangin all off uv him! An some loooong sharp claws an big red eyes, wit blood drippin all down ‘em! An slobberin blood all out his mouth cuz he jes et up a little boy. He creeeeps up on you at night, an if he ketchcha not sleepin, the first thang he do is claw yo eyeballs out an eat ‘em! Then he’ll smear you wit his big o’ bloody hands, an you’ll turn into a big scab an die!!
“Only way you kin keep him off you is to throw some salt on ‘em an he’ll turn yellow an melt away lak a snail do. But if you don’t wanna meet him face to face, you betta go to sleep quick! An that way, he won’t cum afta you. But jes in case, you best take that salt box to bed witcha.”
“Yes mam, I got the box an I’m gon eat sum too! Emma, kin I keep the lamp on turnt down low?”
“Naw, jes go to sleep befo he cum.” She blew the lamp out and left.
I covered my head hiding from Bloody Bones. The squeaking bedsprings quickly lullabied me to sleep … until somebody knocked on the door and wanted a half-pint. I handled all the late, late traffic from my cot office. Usually, I woke up on the first knock and moved quickly through Emma’s room to answer the door before the knocking disturbed them. Digging into the flour barrel in the kitchen for the half-pints, I waited on the customers, collected the money and dropped it in the fruit jar, lay back down and re-hid from Bloody Bones under the covers.
Tuesday, things were slow; we closed up shop and went to bed early for a change. I was asleep on my cot when she came in and woke me up, “Sshhh, be quiet an lissen. The police is outside. You start cryin the minute they cum thru the door. If you cry, they won’t take Emma to jail.”
When I heard the heavy knocking on the door, I got my cry ready. The white man’s voice was gruff, “Open up this Gotdam door, it’s th’ law!”
Very quickly she opened the door and stepped back to the center of the room, gathering me close to her. Feigning fear, I started whimpering. I knew all three of them by name. They had been here before. All three were notoriously well known for their “head cuttin.”
“Yessir, whut y’all want?” Emma asked politely.
“You know damn well whut we want gal!” Mr. Thrasher shot back angrily. “You got sum bootleg whiskey in heah an we gonna find it or beat hell outta you!”
Naw sir, they ain’ none a that stuff in here,” she denied fervently.
“Yore a Gotdam liar!” Mr. Bell shouted, and they began tearing the place apart. After looking under the bed, in boxes, in her trunk and everywhere they could think of, Mr. Thrasher was really getting irritated and took a swing at Emma. I let out my biggest, best cry. For the moment it worked. They wanted her to stop my loud screaming.
During the pause in the action Emma got a chance to collect herself and go into her command performance, “I’m jes a po ol’ workin gal tryin to make a livin an raise this half-white baby. I don’t steal or do none a them bad thangs them other niggers roun here do an I NEVER give the laws no
trouble.”
Mr. Killingsworth bent down to me, “Is there any whiskey in this house, boy?”
“No Sir!”
Not missing a trick, “An jes look at him y’all. He’s one a yo own. Tell ‘em how old you is baby.”
“I wuz born rite behind th’ ol’ jailhouse in nineteen thurty on a Friday at three twenny th’ seventh day uv Febewary. It wuz sleetin an snowin. Gregg County Presink Number One. Hoot Garner is th’ Shariff, I’m fo years old.” It took many a lick with the coat hanger to get it in me, but after I had it down pat she could shake me at four in the morning and I’d rattle it off in my sleep.
She had them until Mr. Thrasher noticed the loose planks in the center of the floor where we were standing. “You an that boy move over.” They lifted the planks and there it was, two cases of half-pints! Dumbstruck, I looked at Emma. This was one of the few times whiskey was in our house and I didn’t know it. When I said “No Sir,” I thought we were sold out. The delivery man had brought it without my knowing.
With a look of “ah ha, we gotcha now” on his face, Mr. Bell yelled, “We’re takin yore ass to jail!”
“Whut am I gon do bout my boy?”
“Leave him wit a neighbor. I don’t give a damn whutcha do wit him, yore ass is goin to jail,” Mr. Bell reaffirmed.
“Please Sirs, Whitefolks, whutever y’all do, don’t make me leave my baby wit none a these niggers roun here,” she begged. “Look at him, y’all. If you wuz a nigger, would you want to keep him? He’s one a y’all Whitefolks, he got some uv y’all’s blood in him.”
There I stood like Mary’s little lamb with my light-colored skin and hazel-blue eyes staring up at the three of them so innocently, thinking, I sho don’t want no blood uv no policemans in me.
“Alright, git him dressed. He’s goin too,” Mr. Bell conceded.
Emma took me behind the doorway curtain. As she helped me get into my cowboy outfit and boots, she whispered, “They ain’ gon keep us in jail long.”
While the other two loaded the whiskey into their car trunk, Mr. Killingsworth told me he would let me blow the siren on the way. I was tickled pink to be going to jail with Emma. She sat in the back and I sat on Mr. Killingsworth’s lap up front, blowing the siren all the way to the jailhouse.
After booking her in, they were ready to take us upstairs to the jail cells on the fifth floor of the courthouse. I felt the sweat in the palm of her hand as she clutched mine tightly. She was constantly telling me to be a big boy and not to be afraid. I told her I wasn’t scared, but that didn’t seem to help much. She was getting more nervous by the minute.
On the walk to the elevator leading up to the cells, she told me not to be afraid and not to cry. I kept saying I wasn’t and I wouldn’t. Inside the elevator, she said it again nervously. When we got off, she said, “Don’t cry baby, an don’t be scaid. Emma’s right here.”
When we got to the cells, they had to decide where to put me. It took a while, but they finally chose a cell across the hall from her. One of them went to the kitchen part of the jail and returned with a wooden apple crate. He told me if I stood on it, Emma and I could see each other. After locking our two cell doors, they left.
I heard the elevator going down. Standing on the box, I could see Emma looking through her barred window at me. “You scaid baby?” she asked.
“No mam, Emma.”
I heard the panic when she yelled, “Well, I’m Gotdam sho scaid, an I’m gon cry!” She screamed and hollered so loud the jailer and two deputies came back up quickly. Emma was in hysterics. They descended again to call the sheriff at his home to find out what to do. By this time I was yelling and sobbing uncontrollably, at Emma’s instructions. “Don’t let me do all the fuckin cryin and hollerin by myself!” After a few minutes, they were unlocking our cells.
“Git the hell outta there,” one of the deputies said as he unlocked our doors.
On the elevator ride down, Emma asked for her whiskey back and cab fare home. We got the cab fare. Once outside, “See there baby, that wuzn’ shit, wuz it? I knowed all the time we wuz gon make it. I bet you thought I wuz scaid, didn’ you? Shit, I wuzn’ scaid one damn minute. I didn’ want you to be scaid, thas all.”
We left the courthouse walking, headed for a joint down on the streets. She bought some fried chicken and got herself a bottle. After a while the whiskey began to talk and she began telling the other patrons how the sheriff demanded her release “soon as he found out” she’d been arrested.
Bright and early the next morning Emma removed the washtub hanging from a long nail on the kitchen wall. “C’mon outside wit me an watch the hydrant while I tote some water.” She made two trips, three bucketfuls into the tub and one bucket placed on the stove top to boil. As soon as the water was hot, she poured it into the tub. After testing it with her hand, “Take off yo clothes.”
“How cum I gotta take a baff Emma?”
“Cuz you need one, thas why. Anyhow, we goin uptown an see yo daddy.” Drying me off, “When you git bigger an see yo daddy someplace, if he don’t say nuthin to you, you don’t say nuthin to him. Walk on by lak you don’t know him, you hear?” I nodded. “An don’t never tell nobody he’s yo daddy. Thas our secret til the day we die. Now hurry up an git yo clothes on.”
I dressed as quickly as I could but needed her help. She was sitting on the side of her bed. “Will ya fix my ‘spenders fo me? They too tight,” while backing up to her.
Loosening the clamps to slide them down, “You growin.” After cramming my shirt tail into my overall britches, she faced me around, licked her fingers and tried to smooth down the unruly mass of golden-brown curls. “We got you ready, now it’s my turn.”
As Emma and I walked down the sidewalk hand in hand, the whitefolks stared at us shamelessly. She stopped on the corner across the street from the Hilton Hotel and kneeled down beside me, “You g’on ‘cross the street now. Watch the cars. Emma’ll wait over here for you.”
Even with times tough as they were, being a cotton broker, my daddy was always good for at least a twenty. I sat at the hotel drugstore soda fountain like I was a white boy, while she paced the sidewalk across the street.
I had met him before. Emma told me, “Here’s yo daddy, boy.” They had a big laugh when she said, “G’on over to him baby. Shit, you look jes lak ‘em.” Then, “Don’t he?” Mr. Albert smiled at her, winked at me, and patted his knee for me to come sit on it.
After I finished drinking my milkshake and getting the twenty dollar bill stuffed in my pocket, he led me to the hotel door and walked me to the corner. While waiting for the traffic, “Bye son, watch out for the cars now,” and gave me a nudge. I ran across the street quickly to hand her the money.
Emma was cleaning the kitchen when Baby Norris stopped by late Monday afternoon. She hadn’t been by for a spell. Once they finished their “Whut on earth you been up to’s” and “When’s the last time you seen so-an-so,” Baby Norris asked, “Puss, where’s that priddy lil’ man a mine? I guess you know he’s gon be my man jes soon as he gits a lil’ bigger. You might as well tell all them other hoes I dun staked my claim on ‘em cuz he’s sho gon be a heartbreaker one a these days. I’m gon be the first one to break ‘em in. Maybe then I’ll have me a man that treats me better’n that sonuvabitch I got.”
“Shit,” Emma said, “he’s jes fo an still got the smell uv milk on his breath. By the time he gits old enuff for you Baby, hell, you’ll be on crutches.”
Laughing, Baby Norris said, “Thas why I wanna git a head start so’s I kin git as much uv it as I kin. I’m so Gotdam tired uv screwin all them old limber-dicked, ‘lapidated bastards I jes don’t know whut to do. Take that shitty ol’ man a mine. Hell, ever once in a while I laks him to take care uv bizness wit me, y’know. But I wind up squeezin his dick so long I gits outta the notion. An when he kin git ready, it always bends in the middle an I end up stuffin an crammin it in. Yeah, I’m up to here,” motioning underneath her nose, “wit them old farts. All that shit
bout I’d ruther be a old man’s darlin than a young man’s fool don’t mean shit in my life. I don’t want nuthin old but money. An I want that to be crisp!”
“Baby Norris, gal, you still crazy. Hell, I thought Jake wuz really layin it to you the way you fuss over him when I see y’all together.”
“Yeah, thas the truth Puss, but I do that to keep sum uv them licks offa my ass. Do you know that nigguh damn near beat me to death a couple weeks ago? Lak’d to knock my teef out when he hit me in my mouf.”
“Whut’d he do that for Baby?”
“Aw, shit. He caught me dead to rights. I held out six dollars so I could git me a pair uv them Mary Jane slippers me an you looked at uptown. He found the money I stashed an my ass is still so’. But I kin tell you rat here an now that in bed he ain’ shit. Th’ muthafucka jes got me scaid uv ‘em an he knows it. Say, I been over here damn near a hour. I’m sho thirsty, ain’tcha got nuthin to drank?”
“Yeah Baby, raise up th’ corner uv that mattress. It’s a bottle under there.”
“I found it. Brang two glasses witcha when you cum in here.”
“I’ll brang you one, but you know I don’t drank mine outta no glass. Leave my part in the bottle.”
“You gon drank sum now?”
“Hell yeah, I’m nearly thru. I wuz tryin to git this kitchen cleaned up befo I set down. Gal, jes keep on talkin. I kin hear you. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Where’s that priddy man uv yourn at? That boy sho got lotsa sense an jes as mannerable as he kin be. I ain’ never said nuthin to him that he don’t say ‘yes mam’ an ‘no mam’ back.”
“He oughta be out in the back somewhere. Why don’tcha call him. It’s time for him to be comin in anyhow.”
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