In Search of Satisfaction (10 page)

All was gone. All but the new little girl-child with the strange, little twisted legs.

Later, the older children tried to share the remaining milk. None could keep it down. No one could keep it down except Hosanna and the little girl-child they had named Lovey. Hosanna did not know the story of the milk then. When she was grown, she would feel that milk in her throat. She hated that she drank it. In some way, she believed she had deprived Lovey or the little boy who died. But there was enough to keep little Lovey alive after all.

The children, young as they were and hard as the thought might have been, built a coffin for their papa. There was not much wood, so the coffin had big spaces between the boards. They put him in it, bent over with his head down like he was praying. They had to keep him until a thaw came and the ground softened. They tore down more of the woodshed and built another coffin with no spaces in it because they wanted Mama and the baby to be as warm as possible. The coffins stayed in their room behind a curtain, because some of the children still had to use that room to sleep in. There were no radios or TV’s to make a lot of noise, and, at that time, the children did not laugh and talk a whole lot; they could hear a sound for miles around. One day their daddy thawed a little enough to straighten out, and he slid down into place. They heard the lid close with a tiny little thud. They heard the sound of the lid closing and no one, not one of them, said a word, or moved. O death, where is thy sting? In the heart.

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or the funerals, there was a man from their church who wanted to be revered. He called himself Reverend, though everybody ought to know you don’t revere anybody but God in Heaven. When the ground was soft enough to be dug for graves, Joel’s friends Mr. Kindle and Mr. Creed came to help with the work. They gave a little money, very little, and food, very little, along the children’s way. The men could not let them starve.

The reverend came by, said a few words over the knotty, crooked coffins, asked the children, did they have any money, any food? They said, “A little food Luke had caught, fish and rabbit his Indian hunting friends had helped him with. And a little money, about $1.10 our mama kept in her saving can.” Looking around at the children, even the little baby, it took the reverend a long time to say, “Well, keep it then. You don’t have to give me nothing for coming all the way over here in this cold weather. Just keep it and the Lord be with you.” He had about fifty dollars in his pockets. His church women were good to him. He left after eating the last piece of fish left in a pan and patting everybody on the head. He lingered on the oldest girl’s, Lettie’s head until she moved it out of his way.

The three children, one of them holding the baby Lovey who had a rag on for a diaper (clean rag, though), watched the reverend ride away on his horse. He had prayed the Lord would be with them. The boy, Luke, was thirteen years old going on fourteen, Lettie Mae was going on twelve, Hosanna was going on six, Lovey was new. All the numbers missing in between were dead.

They had seen love in their mother and father all their lives. They loved each other very much. But they were children. They thought they needed someone older they could trust, someone who cared. Love was too much to hope for. They didn’t know that, exactly, at that time, but they learned.

Two of Bessel’s sisters, Esther and Jessie Bea, came to Yoville after the funerals. Esther lived in Washington, D.C. Her husband was a deacon, among other things. Jessie Bea was a live-in domestic in some other large city. It was not known how they got that far away from Yoville, but they had. Just left, that’s all. Bessel’s brother, Dick, the preacher came also. After much discussion about what could be done with their sister’s children, Esther said she would take Hosanna because her husband, the deacon, would like that name. “I can’t take any one more ’cause I can’t expect my husband to take in somebody else’s kids,” she said. “We’s already havin a hard time. Amen.”

Jessie Bea said she couldn’t take nobody, really, ’cause she lived on the job. Everybody just looked at her and frowned. She finally said she could take the oldest girl, Lettie, cause “might be she could help her find a job. Twelve years is old enough to do some kind of work! Bessel should’a told that daughter of hers not to lay round havin all these babies for no shiftless man! I ain’t got no husband no more and may never get another one with all these kids!”

Jessie Bea sniffed and kept on talking, “I told Bessel she ought’a try to leave here and come where she could live decent! Have somethin sides babies and granbabies she ain’t here to take care of!”

No one paid any attention to the children sitting and listening. Lettie didn’t like the way they were speaking about her mother and father. She spoke up saying, “I might not be old nough to say nothin, but it don’t look like YOU got nothin and is livin so big and decent neither. Your husband gone! You ain’t even got no babies to love!”

Jessie Bea looked at Lettie, then at Esther. “I ain’t takin that one aft all. You all do what you want to!” She looked at the baby with twisted
legs in Lettie’s arms. “I can’t take that one neither, I work.” She sighed. “I guess I can take the boy. Dammit. People ain’t got no right to leave their own problems on nobody else!”

The brother preacher, Dick, spoke up and said he would take the boy. Said he had two good women … ahem … friends, and they would help him, a bachelor, raise the child. Teach him how to live and all. (I guess he was going to show him how to be a preacher and have two women.) Then Dick said, looking round the house (he had already looked over the land), “We can sell this little piece of land that blonged to my sister and give the boy, the kids, some kinda start. Cause I can’t take nobody to nobody empty-handed.”

The young boy Luke spoke up for the first time. He took his baby sister in his fourteen-year-old arms and looked at his aunts and uncle. Said, “I don’t want nobody takin me. And this is our land. My daddy said so. He payed Gramma for it. We gon work it and take care oursef.” Lettie looked at him with such pride. Hosanna looked at him, her little eyes just beaming.

But the uncle preacher puffed out his chest, took his handkerchief out, wiped his forehead, waved Luke aside and said, “You ain’t old enough to decide for yoself. We’ll decide for you. We gonna sell this place. I done already talked to a few people bout the worth of it. I know what I can do. So that’s settled!” He smiled at his sisters cause he was a business man.

Luke said, “No sir, ain’t settled. My daddy said age don’t make you able to do things, sense do. We got sense enough to know we don’t want to sell what blonged to our daddy and mama. Ain’t gonna sell it … sir. We was mostly workin the land anyway, helpin papa. We can keep doin that right on. We done settled that between us.” He indicated Lettie.

Lettie spoke up. “And I’m gonna stay and help him, cause it’s my daddy’s land, too. I can cook and wash and work in the fields with em. The little chilren can go for a little while, cause we ain’t gonna have a lot to eat for awhile, but I’m gonna stay here and work it out with my brother.”

Aunt Jessie Bea looked down at her lap and didn’t say anything at all. Aunt Esther took Hosanna’s hand and smiled a respectful smile at Luke. But still, no one wanted Lovey, the baby, because she was crippled.

So that’s the way it was and that is what they did. The uncle preacher left angry, but you could tell he respected the boy-man, Luke. Aunt Jessie Bea left empty-armed and glad. She did say, as she looked back over her shoulder with a sad little look on her face that had a little love in it for these children she did not really know, “I will try … I will send you a little money from time to time, to help you along.” She sighed. “Cause I know it’s hard out here on this land. Course, it’s hard everywhere IN this land if you po.” She sniffed. “It won’t be no whole lot, but I will send something.” She came back and kissed everyone good-bye. Then she was gone.

Aunt Esther left with her lips pressed tight, holding on to Hosanna’s hand as Hosanna pulled back. Hosanna looked over her shoulder as she was pulled away. Tears were in her eyes, but she did not cry out loud. Even as young as she was, she was trying to think of some way she could get back to her own home, her own family. It was around 1906 or 1907.

A neighbor with a wagon took all the relatives to the train and bus stations in Mythville. Helped them get off all right and on time. Well, thank God for Himself, because the man who called himself the reverend wasn’t going to do anything. Don’t you know?

The reverend didn’t come by before Hosanna left. Didn’t send any food or money. Just sent word by somebody in his church. Said, “Tell em I ain’t seen em over to the church. Tell em they gotta come to God’s house if they want His blessin! Tell em God bless em all, He will take care of you.”

It is not certain if anyone sent them any money or not, but the children kept that land. At fourteen and twelve years old, Luke and Lettie were grown. All the children would be far, far older than most others their age by the time they turned twenty-one, twenty and seven. But proud and independent! They kept that land, believe that!

God gave us a plan long, long ago on how we can make it in the world. It was good for that time and it is good for this time. For all times. He told us it would be hard, that sometimes the more you did right, the harder it could be, but not to stop doing the right things because they will pay off in the end. Not just in going to heaven, but you CAN have a good life on this earth. You just watch those Ten Commandments and watch out for people who do not respect and try to do them.

• ••

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osanna stared out the window and watched the land through little blurry eyes filled with tears. Thinking of her home getting further and further away. Hosanna’s little heart kept repeating “My mama gone … ain’t comin back no mo. My daddy dead. Who gon care bout me?” She would turn her head to look at her aunt who looked worried, then turn back to the window. “Who gon care bout me? I want my mama!” She didn’t cry out loud, but such painful little sounds her heart made in that tiny breast. She wished she could have done something, anything, to save her daddy and mother.

As Hosanna grew up she heard about the “Goddess woman,” but she told herself, “Only Goddess I know here is Mother Earth. People make gods and goddesses of too many things that die, can’t help their own self. That’s why they confused. What they blive in dies. Or if it’s money, you can’t always count on it for what you need. As I see it, we too confused and doing wrong to be gods and goddesses. We are people! Just people. And that is more than plenty to be!”

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osanna’s new home was in Washington, D.C. A small, crowded, tenement house. Aunty lived with her husband in a tiny, apartment crowded full of things gathered over the years from the people she had worked for, and thrift shops. Most of the landlords of the area were white. Ninety-nine and nine-tenths. Aunty’s landlord was one of the preachers at their church, but all the tenants, (except a few nice-looking ladies the preachers looked after), suffered with things that needed fixing or replacing. All they ever got was promises and a “waiting for the Lord to provide.” They not only paid him rent but put money in his collection plate at church as well! Several nights a week and Sunday, too!

There was no place to play except in the streets and most of the youngsters around there wanted to boss or fight you like their folks did them. All colors! Everybody lived together. Church-goers, domestic workers, prostitutes, pimps, old folks, a few dope dealers, a few dope users, winos and plain alcoholics, wife beaters and wife lovers (somebody else’s), thieves and con men and women, no-church preachers, kids with no parents and no homes except an empty house if they could find one, yes, even back then. Someone said the poor are with us always
and I believe “poor” makes all these types of people, that and what is already in their hearts. Satan loves these type of places and poverty. Babies and babies are born. Some make new problems for people and many make new followers of his.

Even some grown people who wanted to work had no home except a park bench or doorway. Hosanna had to watch everything she had all the time, because somebody needed it and wouldn’t back-up from taking it! She wouldn’t even close her eyes at nap-time in school. Her aunty told her not to. “Sleep at home where you safe!” she had said. She didn’t know about how Uncle Deacon was at home. Home wasn’t safe for Hosanna either.

As she grew older, Hosanna found that all these things were hidden behind the things you had to stay busy doing to make a living. In the country where there is some space you can see these things clearer. You even see where there is something you might do to help. But the city is too big, too many, too busy and too fast to stop to see sometime … until it’s your turn.

She also looked up many times at the white house the president lived in that she was learning about in school. She would see the flag waving that they told her to love, while she was learning to hate some of her fellow men because they had something and she hadn’t. But she had sense enough to say to herself, “It ain’t the flag’s fault. Flag ain’t done nothin! Man what waves that flag to keep your eye off him sometime. Them’s the one makin people hate each other.”

Hosanna knew somebody was lying. Too many people were using and stealing from each other. Love was for sale and for free. It just depended on what side of rent day or how full a belly was when love came up. She heard of some of the poor women with children to raise, exchanging love-sex for food, insurance and favors, whatever they needed most. Pretending it might be love … someday.

As Hosanna lived and learned she found that everybody wanted everybody ELSE to do right and be truthful and honest, while they did whatever they wanted. She learned that while learning the rules of being “grown and responsible.”

She watched her friends. Some parents made their children go to school. Some dreamed of their children going on to college. Aunty made her go to school. Thank God! Hosanna studied hard because she wanted to get out of there and back to her “Home” home. Aunty
worked hard all day, stayed in church with the deacons and other women just like her most nights until she fell, dead on her feet, into bed.