by Maya Angelou
“Let me get your bags.”
“No. Have somebody pick them up and keep them for us. You take me to the bar. I see you know where it is.” So, of course, I took her to the bar. My mother said to the bartender, “Give my daughter a Scotch and water, whether she needs it or not. I will also have a Scotch and water. You have whatever you like, and give everybody in this place a drink.”
My smart, glamorous, sophisticated mother sat back in her stool. As usual she was in charge. She turned around and faced me directly. “Baby, let me tell you something: A horse needs a tail more than one season.” What on earth did that mean? I sent for her because I needed her desperately and she arrived with this completely befuddling wisdom. I asked, “Please say that again.”
“A horse needs a tail more than one season. You see, a horse that thinks once summer is over it can get rid of the appendage stuck on the back of its butt, which it doesn’t even have to look at, is a damned fool. If the horse lives, spring will come and the flies will be back, and the flies will begin worrying the horse. When the flies aggravate the horse’s eyes and the ears, the horse would give anything for just a minute’s peace.
“Baby, now they are treating you as if you are a horse’s ass. Let me tell you something. All you have to do is get your work done. If these people live, they will come back to you. They may have forgotten how badly they treated you, or they may pretend that they have forgotten. But watch: They will come back to you. In the meantime, Mother is here. I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.”
I sublet an apartment so that we could be comfortable. My mother stayed with me for the entire shooting of the movie.
Each morning I went to the location to braid the star’s hair. And each morning, until I finished, the crew would hold up action. They would not hang lights nor arrange cameras. The director and the actors stood together in silence until I left. For the first few days after Mother’s arrival, I used all my control to hold back the tears. Slowly, I allowed my mother’s presence to strengthen me. And as I crossed the little lawn adjacent to our building, I would see my mother standing in the window with a cup in her hand and a big smile on her face. I would take the glass elevator up to her floor, and my mother would greet me with a steaming hot cup of coffee.
She said the same thing every morning, “Hi, baby, come in. Here’s some coffee and a kiss for you.” Having her there kissing me, offering me coffee, made me feel like a little girl, like allowing me to sit in her lap. She stroked my shoulders and stroked my back and murmured to me. I stopped feeling sorry for myself.
Mother learned where the shops were. Sometimes she would ask me to accompany her. She found her way around the area. She asked if there were any likable cast members. When I said yes, she said I could invite them.
My mother made fried chicken, mashed potatoes, greens, cabbage, or kale. She would always buy a dessert. The bar was always stocked. She was a raconteur and would entertain my friends as if they were her friends. My mother was irresistible (when she wanted to be) and everyone fell in love with her when she wanted them to.
I noticed after a while, on the set, people started treating me differently. At first it was a little off-putting. The star began to smile more frequently at me when I was braiding her hair. The man who had threatened to run away, to leave us in a lurch, was back saying what a great writer I was and how honored he was. I began to wonder what made them change. I had not done anything unusual for them. Their salaries had not been increased, and the time they owed to the shooting of the film had not been decreased.
One morning as I was leaving, the director said I didn’t have to leave the set anymore. What happened? Why did they change their ways of treating me? I came to the realization that it was because I had a mother. My mother spoke highly of me, and to me. But more important, whether they met her or simply heard about her, she was there with me. She had my back, supported me. This is the role of the mother, and in that visit I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known. In Stockholm, my mother shed her protective love down around me and without knowing why people sensed that I had value.
I never stayed at the shoot after I finished braiding the star’s hair. I counted on luck giving me another chance to learn moviemaking.
Mother understood. She said, “You’re my daughter. Don’t take tea for the fever. You are your own woman.”
After we wrapped the music, I began to think about my mother as a seaman. She had shipped from San Francisco to Hawaii to Tahiti, to Bora-Bora and on to New Zealand. She knew the Pacific but she had no knowledge of Europe. I asked her if she would come with me to Paris and then to London, and maybe sail the Atlantic back to New York City. She said she would be delighted. The thought of taking my mother to Europe somehow liberated me from my fear of flying.
I found a flight that left Stockholm for Paris and came with a one-week stay at a modest hotel. We would spend a few days in Paris and go on to London, then sail back to New York. From there Mother would continue on to California.
We said our farewells to friends in Stockholm and boarded the plane. We were both smokers at the time, so we sat in that section. The doors closed and the plane took off. I noticed that no one said, “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. We are now closing the doors.” I thought, Maybe this is how Swedish airlines do things. We were aloft when screens dropped from the ceiling. They informed passengers, “Smoking,” “No Smoking,” but still no one spoke.
We had been aloft about ten minutes when two cabin attendants came bowing down the aisle. When the signboards receded into the ceiling and the attendants began to speak in sign language, my mother and I looked at each other and at the same moment realized that we had gotten onto a plane full of deaf people. We were amazed and started laughing.
When the attendants came by, my mother said, “Excuse me.”
Shocked, the cabin attendant said, “You’re talking!”
Mother said, “Oh yes, and I’m listening, too.”
The attendant hurried away without finding out what my mother wanted. She told the other cabin attendants that two of us were talkers. I supposed she alerted them so they would not be too shocked.
My mother and I ordered drinks and had a very nice time laughing and smoking, enjoying each other. When we arrived in Paris, we disembarked from the plane and a uniformed attendant began communicating in sign language to the other passengers. Neither Mother nor I could understand. I went up to the attendant and said, “Good afternoon. My mother and I don’t speak the language.”
The woman said, “You’re talking!”
“Yes, I am. I’m speaking in English but I do speak some Swedish and I also listen.”
She asked, “Can you hear me?”
I said, “Yes, of course.”
She said, “But how did you get on the plane?”
“I bought the tickets.”
She said, “But you’re speaking Swedish. Are you Swedish?”
I said, “Not only am I an African American, but so is my mother. No, we’re not Swedish.” We were asked to line up, then board a bus that would take us to our hotel on the Left Bank.
By the time we arrived there, the deaf people knew very well the two black ladies did not speak sign language. The hotel clerk spoke to us in French. Fortunately, my French was good enough. We were given rooms and told to return in the evening for wine before dinner, which was included in our ticket.
We had such a marvelous time in Paris that we extended our stay by a week. I rented an apartment from a woman I knew. It seemed to have a beautifully attended room, with a loft that could be seen from below. A single bed was visible, which was obviously where Mother and I would slee
p.
My mother sat smiling. She didn’t speak French. When the new landlady prepared to leave, Mother whispered, “Where is the toilet? It’s a beautiful apartment but isn’t there a toilet?”
So I asked my acquaintance where the toilet was. She walked to the living room, bent down, took a hook that that was nearly hidden there in the rug, and pulled. A large piece of the floor was raised and we saw a ladder. There at the bottom was a wonderful large kitchen and a beautiful bathroom.
My mother said, “Now, now, baby, you’ve got one on me.”
28
My mother’s gifts of courage to me were both large and small. The latter are woven so subtly into the fabric of my psyche that I can hardly distinguish where she stops and I begin.
The large lessons are highlighted in my memory like Technicolor stars in a midnight sky.
I met loves and lost loves. I dared to travel to Africa to allow my son to finish high school in Cairo, Egypt. I lived with a South African freedom fighter whom I met when he was at United Nations petitioning for an end to apartheid in South Africa.
We both tried to make our relationship firm and sturdy. For a while our attempts were successful. When our attempts failed, I took my son to Ghana and the freedom fighter returned to southern Africa. Guy entered the University of Ghana.
My mother wrote to me and said, “Airplanes leave here every day for Africa. If you need me, I will come.” Her love and support encouraged me to dare to live my life with pizzazz.
“This last husband of Mom’s was my favorite. We were made for each other. He had never had a daughter and I had not known a father’s care, advice, and protection since my teens.”
(Vivian Baxter with her husband, Nollege Wilburn)
I met men, some of whom I loved and trusted. When the last lover proved to be unfaithful, I was devastated. I believed our relationship had been made in heaven, with thousands of baby angels dancing on the head of a pin. The dismay that flooded my heart caused me to move from my home in Ghana to North Carolina.
I was offered a lifetime professorship at Wake Forest University as Reynolds Professor of American Studies. I thanked the administration and accepted the invitation. I would teach for one year and if I liked it, I would teach a second year. I found after teaching one year that I had misunderstood my calling.
I had thought that I was a writer who could teach. I found to my surprise that I was actually a teacher who could write. I settled in at Wake Forest to be a teacher for the rest of my life.
My mother complimented me on my decision and said I would do wonders.
I sat in the beauty salon having my hair cut and curled. The general conversation was typical of black beauty salons. “Are you crazy?” asked a group of black women.
One woman said in a complaining voice, “I don’t think anything is wrong with old folks having sex. It is just that the idea is sad.”
“Old folks look sad having sex? Who told you that lie?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Another woman waited until the clamor had subsided and asked sweetly, “What do you think your mommy and daddy did after you were born? They stopped doing the do?”
The whiner reacted petulantly. “You don’t have to be nasty.” The statement brought howls of derision.
“Girl, you are sick.”
“Get a grip.”
Then the oldest woman in the room said, “Honey, tired don’t mean lazy, and every goodbye ain’t gone.”
I was reminded of my mother when she was seventy-four. She lived in Stockton, California, with my fourth stepfather, whom she called her greatest love. He was recovering from a mild stroke. Her telephone voice clearly told me how upset she was. “Baby. Baby, I’ve waited as long as I could before bothering you. But things have gone on too long. Much too long.”
I made my voice just as soft as hers had been hard. “Mom, what’s the matter?”
Although I now lived in North Carolina, I felt as close as the telephone, airlines, and credit cards allowed me to be.
“It’s your papa. If you don’t talk to him, I’m going to put his butt out; out of this house. I’ll put his butt on the street.”
This last husband of Mom’s was my favorite. We were made for each other. He had never had a daughter and I had not known a father’s care, advice, and protection since my teens.
“What did Papa do, Mom? What is he doing?”
“Nothing. Nothing. That’s it. He’s not doing a damn thing.”
“But, Mom, his stroke.”
“I know. He thinks that if he has sex, he’ll bring on another stroke. The doctor already told him that isn’t true. And I got so mad when he said he might die having sex, I told him there’s no better way to go.”
That was funny, but I knew better than to laugh.
“What can I do, Mom? Really?”
“Yes, you can do something. You talk to him. He’ll listen to you. Either you talk to him or I’ll put him out on the street. I’m a woman; I’m not a damn rock.”
I knew that voice very well. I knew that she had reached her level of frustration. She was ready to act.
“Okay, Mom. I don’t know what I will say, but I’ll talk to Papa.”
“You’d better do it soon, then.”
“Mom, you leave the house at five thirty this evening and I’ll telephone Papa after you’ve gone. Calm your heart, Mom. I’ll do my best.”
“Okay, baby. Bye. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She was not happy, but at least she had calmed down. I pondered throughout the day what I could possibly say. At six o’clock California time I telephoned.
“Hi, Papa. How are you?”
“Hey, baby. How you doing?” He was happy to hear my voice.
“Fine, Papa. Please let me speak to Mom.”
“Oh, baby, she left here ’bout a half hour ago. Gone over to her cousin’s.”
“Well, Papa, I’m worried about her and her appetite. She didn’t eat today, did she?”
“Yes, she did. Cooked crab cakes and a slaw and asparagus. We ate it all.”
“Well, she’s not drinking, is she?”
“She had a beer with me, and you can bet she’s got a Dewar’s White Label in her hand right now.”
“But, Papa, something must be wrong. I mean, is she playing music, cards, and things?”
“We played Take 6 all day on this music system you sent us, and I know she’s playing dominoes over there with your cousin.”
“Well, Papa, you seem to think her appetite is strong?”
“Oh, yeah, baby, your momma’s got a good appetite.”
“That’s true, Papa.” I lowered my voice. “All her appetites are strong. Papa, please excuse me, but I’m the only one to speak to you. It’s true her love appetite is strong, too, and, Papa, please excuse me, but if you don’t take care of her in that department, she will starve to death, Papa.” I heard him cough, sputter, and clear his throat.
“Please excuse me, Papa, but someone is at my door. I love you, Papa.”
There was a very weak “Bye, baby.”
My face was burning. I made a drink for myself. I had done the best I could, and I hoped it would work.
The next morning, about 7 A.M. California time, my mother’s voice gave me the result.
“Hi, darling, Mother’s baby. You are the sweetest girl in the world. Mother just adores you.” She cooed and crooned, and I laughed for her pleasure.
Parents who tell their offspring that sex is an act performed only for procreation do everyone a serious disservice. With absolute distress, I must say that my mom died four years after that incident, but she remains my ideal. Now in my eighties, I plan to continue to be like her when I reach my nineties, and beyond, if I’m lucky.
Mother gave her children all she had to give, but I was never as lonely as Bailey for her presence. He always was the most precious person to me in my life and I had him. He, on the other hand, ached for her and all that the memory of her contained. He was
five when we were sent away, and his young years were already filled with the sounds of music and laughter and the smack of her kisses.
The whirr of wheels and the honking of horns, the screech of sirens outside the house, the voices calling and shouting, were all in his hearing memory. Naturally, the empty roads and the barely furnished quiet rooms of Stamps could not satisfy him. He could not make Arkansas fit his soul’s desolation. But back with her in California, too, it was never quite enough. When he gazed at Mother, his glance was complex: Worship shared space with disappointment. She was here, right now, where he could see her, but she had not been there when he needed her so desperately.
He began flirting with heroin at eighteen. He brushed off my concern. “I can handle it,” he said. He thought his high intellect could protect him from addiction. He was wrong. He left the merchant marine and San Francisco and began living in a drug-filled area nearby.
A dreadful premonition visited me. I thought I would be called and told that he was dead. The possibility nearly took my legs away. I began to stumble and even to stutter.
I found him in a shoot-up house in East Oakland. I had followed a suspicious trail until I came to an old house with broken windows. The front door was guarded by two gaunt, grim men in dirty clothes.
One asked, “What do you want?”
I said, “I’ve come for my brother.” There was neither fear nor hesitation in my voice.
The man nearest the door asked, “Are you the heat?”
I said, “No.” I raised my voice. “I am Bailey Johnson’s sister and I’ve come here for him.” The man heard my determination, then stepped away from the door as if choreographed. I entered the stench and gloom. Immediately I realized I had never been in a place like that. When my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw Bailey sitting on a sofa bed, leaning back against the wall. I sat down beside him.