In Search of Satisfaction (31 page)

The sky grew darker, but she was almost there now. “Only a little ways more,” she said out loud to herself. Then the first drops spattered on her pretty cheeks, then a few more. Then more. She trudged on. The dress she had ironed so painstakingly was getting wet. Lovey wanted to cry because she could not run. She thought, “Never mind that, I’m goin to learn to read! Books and things!”

The rain was heavier now. One knee rag had come loose and was wet and dragging behind her. She could not stop to fix it, she was already too wet and the rain was coming down harder. She finally reached the school, slowing down, tired from her efforts to hurry. Her dress clung to her little body. Her pretty hair was stuck to her face and neck, sparkling with the water. The mixture of mud and clay clung in lumps to her knees and her hands from trying to grab the tail of the rags as she walked. The children were already inside when she got to the school door. Lovey struggled up the steps to the red door.

Somehow, her heart was still thrilling as her hand reached eagerly for the handle to open the door to her little life. The handle turned and she opened the door and the whole class turned their heads to see who was late and looked at her. For a moment, the room was hushed. Then the blue-eyed teacher gasped, “Oh! Oh, my!” The teacher rushed over to Lovey who was about to say, “I’m alright, I’m here,” smiling because she thought that the reason the teacher gasped was because she was wet from the rain. But the teacher said, “Oh, my dear, my goodness! You can’t come in here with all that mud on you! Look at you! Wipe your … You have to leave that mud … and those filthy rags! Outside!”

Still holding the handle of the red door, Lovey looked up into the teacher’s face. Water dripping from the little face and body, the rags surrounding her legs on the floor. The teacher’s words did not penetrate.
“I am at school!” was in Lovey’s wet smile. Then somehow, she felt the tone and did not let loose the door or move forward. The teacher reached to remove Lovey’s hand from the handle and pressed her own hand to Lovey’s chest, pushing her backward, back into the rain, while with her other hand she waved Lovey out. When Lovey did not seem to understand, or move, the teacher pressed Lovey harder, it became a push. “You must go out now, little girl, you can’t come here wet like that.”

Lovey looked down at herself and saw the clinging dress and the bungled rags. She thought, “I’ll let em dry. I’ll fix em. What that got to do with school?” She forgot to say it out loud, she was looking with longing and joy into the other children’s faces. Lovey moved forward, dragging the rags. The teacher pressed harder and snatched the door from Lovey’s hand. “Go home, little girl! Go home to your mother! She should not have sent you here without consulting me! We have no place for crippled people here! And you can’t bring dogs!”

Lovey looked around and there was Pap, standing in the rain. She wanted to cry. She wanted to remove the hand from her chest and go in to the bright, warm room with the books on the desks. The children in the class were giggling and even laughing at her.

An Indian girl of twelve years or so got up from her seat way in the back of the room, went to the cloak room then came to the red door. She placed a hand on Lovey’s shoulder and removed the hand of the teacher from Lovey’s chest and said, “I’ll take her home, Miss Small, I think I know where she lives.” Miss Small was relieved as she held her own throat with her lily white hand, “Well, then, good. Tell her mother she can not come here.”

Lovey spoke up, “I don’t have no mother. I want to come to school myself.”

The teacher waved them out the door. “Well … well, thank you … ahhhh …” The teacher did not remember the girl’s name.

“Little Wisdom is my name,” the girl said as she turned Lovey around. Lovey was still looking back at the seated children who were laughing at her, with a mixture of desire and pain on her small, wet face. She looked back until the door closed loudly, sharply in her face, then she stared down at her legs. Little Wisdom pulled gently on her hand, “Come on, little girl, I’m a take you back home to your house.”

Lovey answered softly through the rain, “But I want to read.”

Little Wisdom pulled her gently, knowing the pain that must be in Lovey’s knees. “Come on, I’ll carry you.” She lifted Lovey, placing wet clothes and rags against her own well-worn but clean dress also carefully prepared for school, though prepared by her mother who believed in education by the white man if you were ever going to beat him at his own game. The mother had had to fight for Little Wisdom, a girl, to go to school. But the mother won, so Little Wisdom got to go to school.

Little Wisdom trudged through the mud and clay of the school yard, then across the road. Pap followed, his head down as if in sorrow. Then Lovey said, “Me and Pap can go on from here. I’m already wet. You go on … back … to school.”

Little Wisdom put the girl down. The rain was letting up. She asked, “You want me to come and teach you how to read?”

Now I don’t know if you have ever seen love in anyone’s eyes stare out at you, but Lovey looked at Little Wisdom with all the love in the world. All the gratitude Little Wisdom would see in her life for a long, long time. Little Wisdom smiled from her inner warmth and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Lovey.”

“My name is Wise Flower, but I just say Little Wisdom because it is easier for people to take. My family lives in the hills over there on the other side of the river. I cross it in my canoe every morning. I’ll come to you, Lovey. I’ll come when I can.” Little Wisdom thought of a book she could steal. “I’ll bring you a book, too! From Miss Small. It will be easy to find you. I will find you.” She had been going to school without a book ever since she started two years ago, but she would steal one for Lovey.

Lovey hugged her and Little Wisdom turned back to the school. “I’m goin in, wet as I am!” She ran on her way. Lovey decided to run, she tried, her little legs slapping the earth beneath her, Pap trotting at her side.

Back at home, Lovey cried as she took off and washed her dress and the rags, standing in her little hand-me-down panties, pinned so they would stay up. She would cry awhile, then laugh a little, thinking about her love of Little Wisdom and learning to read. Pap laying not far from her knees, slapping his tail on the floor happily when Lovey was laughing. He wasn’t often allowed in the house until snow was on the ground, so he was happy. Happy, until Lovey cried, then his tail stopped wagging
and waited until she smiled again, then it wagged and slapped the floor again and again … and again.

Lovey never told Luke or Lettie about all that had happened to her. Though they finally heard about it, they never talked about it. But when Little Wisdom came, they treated her like a most welcome member of their family. Luke brought books from the Befoes that Richlene gave him when she heard. Young as she was, Little Wisdom began to fall in love with Luke because he was so kind and generous. Always giving her a chicken or something from the garden to take home. Luke did not really see Little Wisdom at that time, she was not a woman to him. He did go over to the hills to go fishing or hunting with her brother and uncles. He liked that and it saved money for food. He would not kill what he did not intend to eat.

Lettie took the opportunity to learn to read and count a little, too, when she was home. This is how their life went. Accepting the bad and the good of life. Satan never bothered with them. They were already sad.

Hosanna had sent small sums of money home to them now and again. The money always coming in the time of need, no matter when it came. They had small Christmasses. Only church for Easter. But if a holiday was about food, they had plenty. The old chicken house that had belonged to Ruth was full of chickens they kept more for laying than eating.

They were satisfied together, but unsatisfied and lonely in each of their own lives apart. They loved each other but did not know what to do with life. What COULD they do with life? They were already working with every tool they had.

o
n this night, Hosanna finally left Yin’s and was making her way home at last, pulling her little red wagon filled with her boxes, bringing her hope, pain, need, anger and loneliness and love in it, too. She walked down the main road, looking through the darkness all around her, searching for her home, that little house she had left but remembered so well.

All the lamps and candles were out and each of them, Luke, Lettie and Lovey, were alone in their rooms with their thoughts.

Luke, in his underwear, lay on his side, staring through the little window at the night, the stars, the shapes of the trees. His breathing was soft, though he was tired from a hard day’s work with the horses. Now that Mr. Befoe was getting sicker, wasn’t nobody to talk to bout the horses and what they needed, cept Creed, and what could Creed do? Anyway, he had other problems. Luke looked past the trees up to the dark sky.

“I’m a man, Lord. I’m a man and I can’t even take care of my sisters enough so one can go to school and the other one can rest some and go be with that man she love. Lettie scared to get married and leave us cause what can Lovey do? She try, but what can she do? Can’t take over
the garden by herself and we needs that little money the Befoes pay me. Lettie tired, too. We all need to get on way from here, but where we goin? We poor. Ain’t got nothin but this house. And I can’t even always afford to fix it up when it need somethin. It need a roof right now. This the one my daddy put on here. It’s bout gone.”

There were no tears in Luke’s eyes. They were in his heart trying to get to his eyes, but he wouldn’t let them. “What I’m gonna do, Lord? I could make more money somewheres else. I know aplenty to do. But I can’t leave. What would my sisters, my family do? One young and tired. One with no legs? Lettie need to have her own life now, she bout grown. I know she loves that boy Boyd. And what Lovey gonna do alone? Die? Everybody else done left, could they help it or not. I can’t leave them, Lord, they mine. My re-spon-si-bi-lity. I loves em, Lord. I loves em, but I miss my papa and my mother. Why they both had to go, Lord? Why you take everything? And why I love that lady Richlene like I do? I know she not sposed to be no real grown woman, but I know she a real woman. I love her like she a real woman, Lord, you know I do. Ain’t no use in thinkin of that. Lil Wisdom try to think she love me, but she a chile. I ain’t thinkin of Lil Wisdom either. Nobody but Richlene. A rich, white man’s daughter. Lord, Lord, what I’m gonna do? I ain’t done no livin either. All my life I been livin my daddy’s life. What about me, Lord, what about my satisfaction? I ain’t sayin take the cross off my back, I love my sisters. I’m just sayin give me a cane, a wheel, I’ll do somethin with it. Just a little help, Lord. A little help. I blives in you.”

t
he moonlight moved through other windows of the little house, faintly lighting up the kitchen and the little sitting room that was next to Lettie’s room. She was turned, facing the wall in her little bed. Her strong, healthy body was wrapped in the big, poorly fitting gown the white lady at one of her jobs had given her instead of throwing it out in the trash.

Lettie put her hand out through the darkness and placed it on the wall as though she would push the wall away. Her other hand smoothed over her ripe, full body. “Young, strong, full of come and ain’t had enough of nothin! And none of somethin!” Then she shook her head to chase those thoughts away, but she couldn’t, they would not leave.

“Lord, I been seein and I been readin and I know there is romance and love and satisfaction in life. Why can’t I get any? I loves Lovey, I loves Luke. But I loves Boyd too. I always got to choose. I got to choose them cause I can’t leave Lovey on her knees and Luke on his behind tryin to make out a life for everbody. But I needs … Oh Lord, I needs … somethin! I ain’t happy. I ain’t unhappy, cause I love my family, but Lord, I ain’t got no satisfaction in my nights. I wants to be married. I wants my own chilren … after a while. But Jesus, is this all there is gonna be? Is this all they gonna be for me? Lovey can’t never change. She gonna be here forever. Do I gotta stay with her? Oh, I love her, Lord, don’t blame me that, but I love me too and I wants somethin for me. Lord, other girls, other women, gonna give Boyd what he want. He be hangin roun down there at Choke’s ole juke pool joint. They have real, live musicians sometime. Women always be hangin roun there, too. They sho gonna give him what he want. I can’t. Spose I get pregnant? Sides, You done said not to. But you ain’t here, Lord, You ain’t me.”

Satan loves those words. He smiled.

Tears moving slowly down Lettie’s face, she continued speaking to God, “You in heaven. I wants to be in heaven … on earth. Boyd make me feel like I could be in heaven on earth. Oh, I ain’t bad, God, I’m just … lonely … and ugly … and poor. And I hurt. My heart hurt and my body hurt, cause I ain’t got no pleasure, no satisfaction out of my life. I know they love me, but they ain’t enough, Lord, they just ain’t enough seem like. Is this all I’m gonna get? What I done already got? I don’t want much, just a little somethin. A little somethin. Can you see your way to send me a little somethin, God? You don’t know. It’s awful lonely down here. Somethin be empty inside you. Somethin be gnawin away at your insides. Somethin hungry … and you ain’t got nothin to feed it. I wants to be full, Lord. Oh, Jesus, I want to be full of food and joy and happiness, not all this empty. Boyd say he can satisfy my life. Well, I want … I neeeed some satisfaction, God.” Satan moved away. But God didn’t.

t
he moon moved through the windows of Lovey’s room. She was sitting up in an old slip Lettie had given her from one of her jobs. Lovey looked down at her knees. She rubbed them a moment, thinking, “Don’t
you worry. I love you. You mine. You all I got to move in this world with. I just wish we could walk away and let my famly go. I know Luke could leave and I know Lettie love Boyd but just don’t let go and leave us. It’s me. Cause if they was alone, they could both go and live how they want to. I want to live a life, too. Thank you, God, for givin me books. Books is my whole world. They take me way from round here. I done seen Spain and China … a little bit. I done seen some of America. Hosanna done seen it, sure nuff. If I could walk there to that Washington, I would. Sure would, Lord.