All-Bright Court Page 7

  They were drinking some peach wine her mother had put up. Her father gave her a splash in a tin cup. It was hot and sweet.

  “Is your mama fenna have the baby?” her father asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What your aunt-nem doing in there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What you mean, you don’t know? What you was doing in there?”

  Venita began crying, puffing out enough clouds to fill a stormy sky. Her father calmed her down, filled her cup with wine. “Huh,” he said. It was an apology.

  She cried softly and drank the wine. Her father went back to his game, slamming dominoes down on the plank porch. Venita did not notice her hands were numb.

  Morning was coming. A grayness was pushing its way into the sky when a cry came from the house. It woke Venita where she had fallen asleep on the porch. She went inside to find her father in the kitchen. The women made him wait before they would let him in to see the baby.

  Venita went in with him. It was a boy, and there he was with her mother. They were in the bed. Her mother was asleep, her hair gone back and drawn up tightly on her head. The midwife handed her father a sack and told him to take it out back and bury it.

  Venita thought he was taking it to the garden, and she headed in that direction.

  “Where you going?” her father asked. “Come on.”

  He led her to the back corner of the yard and beat at the earth with a spade. It broke in big chunks, yielding a small, shallow hole.

  “It probably ain’t deep enough,” he said. He placed the sack in the ground and pressed the clods back into the hole.

  “What’s in the croaker sack?” Venita asked.

  “The afterbirth. Let’s go.”

  Venita did not ask for any more of an explanation. She went inside and up to bed. As she was falling to sleep, she thought that this was what it must feel like to be old. Stiff and tired, wanting nothing but rest and feeling like all that came before was a confusing dream.

  No, it was not because she was stupid that she had no children. Venita figured even stupid women could have children—plenty had. If she wasn’t stupid, maybe she was just unblessed. Unblessed wasn’t the same as cursed. It was not that she had offended God.

  There was a lady back home who had. She would wander through town mumbling, her hair matted like a sheep’s coat, her clothes tattered, carrying a dirty rubber doll wrapped in a threadbare diaper. Venita’s mother told her about the woman.

  “That woman cursed. When her was a girl no bigger than you, her family-nem had a cat that had kittens. They needed that cat to keep mice out the house, but they ain’t need no litter of kittens to feed. Her family-nem couldn’t afford it. So the mama tied them up in a sack and told her to take it down to the creek and throw it in. There ain’t no sin in that, ’cause the Lord understand. He know how much you can bear. He would lift they soul up right out the water. Pluck they soul out.

  “But that girl was a regular hardhead, had a head like a regular rock. She thought her mama was being mean, so her took it in her head to be mean too. Before her got to the creek her threw the sack in a trash can that was on fire.

  “Them cats was screaming and yelling to get out the bag. Now, her family-nem didn’t find out ’bout it then. But when her grew up it all come out. Ain’t nothing you can’t do in the dark that don’t come out in the light. When her grew up and took a husband, her ain’t had no one baby. Her had a whole litter, five or six, all born at the same time. All born live, too, and crying just like them kittens. Every last one died. Her told her family-nem. Her was raving. All ’bout kittens and a fire. They say her was in shock, you know. Her ain’t never come out it.

  “The Lord dried her womb up, turned her womb into a barren field. That’s the way of the Lord.”

  Venita had never done anything that would cause God to curse her. But how could the women in All-Bright Court know that? All they could know was her emptiness. So she tried to hide from them in broad daylight, to make herself invisible while she was hanging clothes, shopping, sitting on the porch. She longed to know one of the women.

  Venita was not invisible. Mary Kate had seen her, so boldfaced, looking at her, at her children. Mary Kate knew she looked at the children because she was empty, but Mary Kate did not know Venita looked at her because she was lonely. Mary Kate had never taken out time to consider that possibility. In the nearly four years since Venita moved in, she had never said more than “hey” to Venita.

  Four years had filled up quickly. Four years of diapers and sheets and work clothes strung on lines. Up until ’65 she had a wringer washer. She had four years of sprinkling, starching, ironing. Four years of grits, redeye gravy, beaten biscuits, fried porgies, fried chicken, fried tomatoes, fried corn, fried pork chops, smothered pork chops, field peas, black-eyed peas, corn bread. Four years of scrubbing the floors, the children, the walls, the dishes, the toilet, the tub. Four years of making love, rocking babies, changing diapers. And not just these four years, but the six years of her married life had been spent taking care of everyone else, of everything else. She had never had the time to contemplate her own loneliness, or anyone else’s. And if you had asked her, she would have thought she had said more than “hey” to Venita. She would have thought she knew her. She had never taken out the time to notice that whenever she spoke to Venita, Venita looked shocked.

  It was Samuel who challenged what she knew. He challenged who she thought she was, and she took his challenge as a threat.

  It was another dismal Saturday in the dead of winter, and the weather had been so bad that Samuel had not seen the sun in more than a month. He and Mary Kate and the children were watching television, and he was already in a bad mood because Mary Kate wanted to see Mission: Impossible instead of Get Smart. Mission: Impossible had a black person in it. Samuel had told her, “I don’t want to see no Negro sweat for a hour. That’s all they let him do. He always be crawling under stuff, fixing it. He ain’t nothing but a handyman.” Mary Kate didn’t say anything. She was holding the baby Mary. But he put his foot down when she wanted to watch The Hollywood Palace because Sammy Davis Jr. was going to be on.

  “That Tom!” he yelled.

  “He not no Tom,” she said.

  “He is. What he going be doing? Bowing and scraping and shining shoes. A big smile and tap dancing like a black monkey on a string. That’s what he going be doing.”

  “He help Dr. King, you know that, working for our rights. You just jealous. He making big money.”

  “I’m not jealous. I think he putting on a act. He don’t care nothing ’bout Negroes, marrying that white woman. I see Negroes like him every day, breaking into a goddamn buck-and-wing every time a white man come by. I can’t stand to see a Negro act like that. You want to see our son grow up and be like that?”

  “Me?” Mikey asked.

  “Yeah, you. What other son I got? Don’t you grow up and be no white man’s nigger, hear me?”

  “Samuel, stop talking like that.”

  “Like what? You need to get out in the world. All you do is set in the house and keep to yourself.”

  “You think all I do is set here all day? Who you think look after your kids, clean the house, wash—”

  “That ain’t what I’m saying. I know you do all that, but you don’t know nobody. You ain’t got one girlfriend. Tell me that you do,” Samuel said.

  “How many friends you got? Who you bring ’round here?”

  “Most of them rumheads I know I wouldn’t bring ’round you and the kids. You know I go out, play some cards, go to the diner sometime, to the hall. You don’t do nothing.”

  “I be tired. Don’t you think I be tired?” Mary Kate asked.

  “I ain’t saying you not tired. I’m saying I’m starting to think you hankty.”

  “You going sit there and call me stuck-up in front my kids?” She felt fire in her throat and jumped from her chair. She had been holding Mary on her lap. The baby rolled onto
the floor and started crying. The baby’s fear spread to the other children and they began yelling.

  Mary Kate circled Samuel’s chair. “Hankty, hankty, hankty,” she said over and over, her voice getting higher and higher each time she said the word. She came to a stop in front of his chair. Samuel was scared. It was like he poured water on a wildcat. She looked as if she were going to scratch him to death.

  “The baby,” he said. “Look at the baby.”

  She did not look.

  “It ain’t me that said it. I just heard it said.”

  “Who said it?” she pressed.

  “You know how Negroes talk.”

  “Who said it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. You know Negroes always talking, always got to have something to say. That’s our problem. We talk too much.”

  “I don’t know ’bout ‘we.’ You don’t know when to shut up,” Mary Kate said.

  “I’m shutting up right ’bout now,” Samuel said.

  “Well, you should,” she said. She picked the baby up from the floor. Samuel grabbed Mary Kate and pulled her onto his lap.

  “Don’t you be trying to make up to me.” She began patting the baby gently on the back. “And what ya’ll was screaming for?” she said to Mikey and Dorene. “Ya’ll little pitchers got big ears.”

  “What that mean?” Mikey asked.

  “That mean don’t be minding grown folks’ business. Hollering like ya’ll crazy.”

  “Let’s put the kids to bed now,” Samuel whispered.

  Mary Kate got up from his lap. “What you going to go and ask a hankty woman that for?”

  “Come on, baby. Let it die.”

  “So, now I’m your baby?”

  “Yeah. You know that,” Samuel said.

  “Samuel, do you really think I’m hankty?” she asked. She was serious.

  Samuel looked at her. “Naw. I told you I never said it. I say you keep to yourself too much. I’m a stand by that. You can be mad at me if you want to. It’s the truth. You need to get out, make you some girlfriends for your own good.”

  “I’m not mad,” Mary Kate said. “Dorene and Mikey, ya’ll go on upstairs.”

  “What about the baby?” Mikey asked.

  “Don’t worry ’bout her. You do what your mama say,” Samuel said.

  Mary Kate went and sat back down on Samuel’s lap. “You know,” she said to Samuel, “putting the kids to bed and going upstairs with you is how I stay in trouble.”

  “It ain’t trouble. I’m your husband. We going to have a boy this time. I can feel it. You carrying a boy.”

  In the last few days of winter, when warmth was beginning to push its way up through the earth, Mary Kate took on Samuel’s challenge. She had stopped in the Red Store with Dorene and Mary, and Venita was at the counter. Mr. Jablonski was weighing a piece of salt pork for her. At first, she walked past Venita like she did not see her, leaving Venita to feel secure in her guise of invisibility.

  Venita was staring at Dorene. Dorene had taken off the woolen scarf that covered her head. Her hair was greased and parted into a series of interconnected braids that ran off the back of her head. To Venita, her hair looked like a newly planted spring field.

  Mary Kate saw Venita staring at Dorene, and said, “That pork any good?”

  Venita started. She was being summoned from her hiding place.

  “Of course the pork is good. You know my meat is always good,” Mr. Jablonski said.

  “I was talking to her,” Mary Kate said, nodding her head toward Venita. “I figure she know more ’bout salt meat than you.”

  Venita heard herself say, “It’s awful fat.”

  “What do you expect?” Mr. Jablonski said. “It’s pork we’re talking here.”

  “My husband like it fat,” Mary Kate said, ignoring him. “How your husband like it?”

  “He like it fat. He partial to fatback, but there ain’t none today.”

  “Tuesday,” Mr. Jablonski said. “I’ll have some in on Tuesday, and I’ll have some tripe and pigs’ feet.”

  Mary Kate left the girls at the counter and went to the back of the store. Venita looked at them. “How ya’ll?” she asked. They both stared at her. Mary could not talk, and Dorene was too shy to speak. Their silence made Venita momentarily disappear.

  “You heard the woman speak, Dorene. You speak when grown folks speak to you,” Mary Kate said, returning to the counter. She had two boxes of starch.

  “Hello,” Dorene said.

  “‘Hello’ what?” Mary Kate prompted.

  “Hello, ma’am.”

  “You know how it be with kids,” Mary Kate said. “You got to learn ’em while they young.”

  Venita was silent.

  Both of the women signed Mr. Jablonski’s green ledger. Before they left the store, Mary Kate tied the scarf on Dorene’s head.

  “Your name Ventrice, right?”

  “My name Venita.”

  “My name Mary Kate, Mary Kate Taylor. My girls’ names Dorene and Mary.”

  Venita walked along beside Mary Kate and the girls, feeling giddy. It was like being found at hide and seek, lurking in the dark behind a bush. It was as if you had dissolved into the bush, folded yourself into leaves, stretched yourself into branches, and now that you were found, were turning yourself human again, warm and water-laden and briny. Running, laughing through the shadows, dodging your pursuer, racing for the safety of home. But as Venita walked, as she, Mary Kate, and the girls crossed the field, she realized she did not want to go home. She was glad they were walking slowly. Mary Kate could not walk quickly. She was carrying the baby low.

  They came to Mary Kate’s row first, and Venita hesitated. Mary Kate could see her reticence. “I got to be getting home. My boy coming home for lunch, and I got to get dinner started.”

  “Me too,” Venita said. “I mean, cooking for my husband. He on days now.” She stood facing Mary Kate and began backing away.

  “Come ’round sometime, hear? I be having some time to visit after lunch.”

  Venita did not answer. She broke into a run.

  Mary Kate was going to tell Samuel about her, about the way people could be. See, she wanted to say, people crazy. You go all out your way, and they run off like something after them. I’m not going be putting myself out. People can call me what they want to.

  It was a good thing she did not say anything, because Venita did visit. It was nearly two weeks later. While Mary Kate was out in the back yard hanging up clothes, Venita came around the corner carrying a brown paper bag. She was turning to go back home when Mary Kate saw her.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey,” Venita said. “I was going to stop by, but I see you busy.”

  “I’m not busy. This my last load, come on.”

  The girls were asleep, and Venita and Mary Kate sat in the living room. Venita had brought over a pound cake, a small golden loaf, which she offered to Mary Kate.

  “This just the thing for my sweet tooth. It seem like when you carrying, you be having a taste for all kind of things.”

  Mary Kate ate four slices of cake. She ate on the move, checking pots on the stove, looking in on the girls, folding clothes. All the while she moved with a slow and gentle grace.

  To Venita it seemed the baby was not a visitor to her body but a natural part of it. “You never get tired, do you?”

  “I be tired all the time,” Mary Kate said. “Don’t pay no mind to me.”

  “You never sit down,” Venita said. “Excuse me for saying that. It probably ain’t my place. I ain’t mean nothing by it.”

  “Yes, you did,” Mary Kate said, and she laughed. “You sound like my doctor. He want me to set down and take it easy. But if I don’t do, who going to do?”

  “Nobody,” Venita offered.

  “That’s what I say, talking ’bout take it easy. That’s what my doctor say, like he know. When my husband come home from work, he want to eat. He need clean clothes to wear. You know how dirty them w
ork clothes be. My baby need clean diapers. I got to send my boy off to school. Tell me, who going to do?”

  “Nobody,” Venita said.

  “That’s what I say.”

  At dinner that night Mary Kate brought up the visit. “I had me a visitor this afternoon,” she teased.

  “I know. I saw him tripping out the back door when I came in,” Samuel said.

  “Samuel!”

  “Who?” Mikey asked. “Who was here?”

  “It was Miz Reed—and you mind your own business, boy. Samuel, why you stirring stink?” Her voice was rising.

  “I’m not stirring stink. I’m happy to hear you had company.”

  “You know her husband?”

  “Humph.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You know him?”

  “Yeah, I know Moses. He a T-o-m,” Samuel said.

  “That spell Tom,” Mikey said.

  Mary Kate swatted at him from across the table. “How many times I got to tell you to not be minding grown folks’ business.”

  “I don’t know her,” Samuel said. “But I know she barren.”

  “How you know?” Mary Kate asked.

  “I just know. You know how Negroes talk.”

  Venita would come by on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and, sitting surrounded by piles of clean clothes, help Mary Kate eat her way through the end of her last trimester. They ate pound cake, bread pudding, jelly cake, rice pudding, anything that was sweet and homemade. Venita turned out dessert after dessert. She gained weight. Being there with Mary Kate made her feel pregnant. Her face filled in and her stomach rounded out.

  Mary Kate would top off each dessert with a handful of starch. If the girls were up, they would beg for some.

  “I eat so much of this stuff that it constipate me,” Mary Kate told Venita one afternoon.

  “Why you eat it, then?” Venita asked.