Knowing (6 page)

Jackson’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Hey, that’s the only baby I’ve got. She’ll always be my baby.”

“You talked it over with Ginger? How does she feel about moving to Mississippi?” Little Bubba asked.

“She doesn’t know.”

“So it’s like that.”

“Yeah, it’s like that.” Jackson reached behind the bar and pulled out two foam cups, and turned down the volume on the radio. He could only stand so much music. He liked listening to the news station. “I need a drink. You want a shot?” Little Bubba nodded. Jackson poured them each a hefty splash of Christian Brothers, topping it off with a bit of Coke.

The clock ticked noisily in the background as they sat sipping their drinks. Jackson described the scene with Ginger that morning while they had their third drink.

There was a long pause before Little Bubba spoke. “I hate to tell you this, man, but you’re wrong.”

Jackson’s hazel eyes held a lethal calmness. Setting down his drink, he leaned his elbows back on the bar. He respected his friend, but he wasn’t going to listen to someone trying to tell him how he should run his home or his wife. He said coolly, “How do you mean?”

“I’ve talked to Ginger occasionally at the club’s family picnics. She’s very intelligent, and I won’t even mention how everybody in the club raved about the leather chaps and vest she made you. It’s obvious she’s talented too. Man, you can’t hold a woman like that back. I wish Lillian had pursued her gift of painting with the same passion. After working all them years in a factory, I can’t blame Ginger for wanting to get out. Personally, I wouldn’t want my wife working like a dog in that car plant.”

Jackson bristled at his comments. What did Little Bubba know? Or more, what right did he have telling Jackson anything? “Last time I checked, you didn’t have a wife.” Jackson knew that was below the belt, but he felt his friend had crossed the line, so why shouldn’t he?

Little Bubba knew deep down his old friend didn’t mean any harm. If any other man this side of heaven had made that remark about his dead wife, he would have pushed his size eight and a halfs down the crack of his ass. He drained the bottom of his drink and grabbed his coat. “If I had a wife like yours . . . I’m telling you man, these nineties women ain’t taking that male chauvinist shit no more. They’re walking out, and ain’t looking back. I just hope that you wake up before it happens to you.”

“Sierra, you and Autumn get down here,” Ginger hollered. Two pairs of feet pounded down the stairs as Ginger cleared the half-full cereal bowls from the breakfast table and set them on the sink. “Didn’t I tell you not to pour more cereal in the bowl than you were going to eat?” Their heads nodded in agreement. “Then why are they half-eaten?” Ginger raised her voice and the bowls simultaneously.

“Mama —” Sierra kicked Autumn in the leg — “we were planning on coming back downstairs to finish just before you called us.” She handed Autumn her bowl and spoon. “See . . . we were gonna finish.” Autumn, following Sierra’s lead, lifted the bowl to her mouth and drank the remaining milk. They were still stuffed from the leftover pizza Jason had fed them earlier.

“Where’s Christian? I want this house clean in the next two hours. I’ve got a lot to do today. Let’s get with it,” Ginger called, already climbing the stairs.

When Ginger wasn’t looking, Sierra kicked at her sister — then snarled, “I told you to let me fix it. My stomach feels like it gonna bust open.”

*    *    *

“I know, Ma. I’m getting my room cleaned up, Ma,” said Christian, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. “Yes, I saw the list you left on my dresser.” Every Saturday, the same routine.

Ginger left a similar list on Jason’s dresser. When he came in from work, she’d let him rest for a couple of hours, and then he’d have to pitch in and do his part like everyone else did. He grumbled and mumbled, as they all did. Well, she was just as sick of cleaning every weekend as they were. Maybe she’d find out how much it would cost for someone to come in and do the heavy cleaning every two weeks.

Jackson waved to Autumn, Sierra, and Christian building snowmen in the yard as he pulled into the driveway. The leather seats squeaked at the release of his 220-pound frame. He was surprised to see Ginger’s minivan missing from her section of their three-car garage.

The smell of Pine Sol greeted him at the back door, and he knew without looking that the house was spick-and-span. Although as he walked down the upper hall, the familiar odor of teenage funk funneled from Jason’s room. Kicking off his cowboy boots, he discarded them along with his jeans and shirt in a cluttered pile near the bed and stretched out on the mattress.

Later that evening Ginger returned home, carrying a large box. “Where have you been all day?” asked Jackson, looking up from the television set.

“I’ve been over at Kim’s. I called home to speak to you, but Jason said you were still sleeping.” She placed the black box on the chaise next to her purse. Walking into her closet, she slid off her gym shoes, scooting them into their cubbyhole. She folded her jogging suit, and placed it in her bottom drawer. Up above her were rows of large white, square hat boxes stacked on top of each other. Several round black glossy boxes were imprinted with the name of Henry and Hatter in gold letters — a men’s hat store. Ginger loved the way she looked in men’s hats. After changing into her nightgown, she retrieved the box from the sitting room and rearranged the shelf to accommodate her latest purchase.

“You bought a new hat?” Jackson asked over the loud cheers coming from the set. He wanted to talk about anything other than the problem at hand. He hoped she had forgotten the real estate idea, but after talking to Kim all afternoon . . .

“Yeah. Kim and I went shopping. She bought one too.” Ginger wondered if he was going to broach the subject again. Well, she’d tell him about her decision when the time was right. “I’m going to check on the kids’ clothes for church tomorrow. You going?”

“Yeah, set my suit out, will you?”

Ginger felt her anger rising, but said nothing. She didn’t want to start fighting yet.

Later, as Ginger slid into bed, she tried to neutralize the anxiety now stirring inside her, and she prayed for the spiritual peace that fellowshipping in church the next day would surely bring.

Jackson cussed and shouted as the Pistons’ lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers narrowed. Cleveland had two chances to tie the score after Steve Kerr cut Detroit’s lead to 92 to 90, but it wasn’t to be. Isiah Thomas hit a three-point with 2:34 left to make it 101 to 96, and finished with nineteen points. The Pistons were victorious, 105 to 100.

Pushing the remote, Jackson turned off the set and climbed in beside Ginger. He pulled her close, smelling the scent of the China Rain cologne and Shower to Shower body powder that was forever present on her pillow. He lifted a tendril of hair and kissed her neck. Shrugging him off, she moved to the outer edge of their king-size bed. He got the hint. He turned his back, and replayed the Pistons game, over and over in his mind until finally, he drifted off to sleep.

“Shhhh, Autumn. You’re going to have to be quiet while the pastor is speaking, otherwise you’ll have to go with the children to the children’s section next time.” Where you should have gone today if your daddy hadn’t been so insistent that you had a little sniffle and needed to stay with us, Ginger added to herself. Autumn’s small hand continued to tap her mother’s leg as she tried to prompt her mother to let her speak. “Okay, Autumn, what is it?” asked Ginger, wondering why Jackson never seemed to notice how much trouble the child was when she stayed in the service with them. Autumn pointed to the elegantly dressed woman, clad head to toe in black, sitting next to Jackson, and whispered that she hadn’t put any money in the collection plate when the usher passed it down the row. Ginger patiently whispered to her observant baby daughter that not everyone who looked like they had money always had it.

“The good Lord wants his children to come to church whatever their circumstances,” she explained in a whisper. Autumn seemed satisfied and sat back quietly.

The pastor wiped his sweaty forehead, hesitating for effect as he continued his sermon. “These young people around here talking about ‘fresh.’ They don’t know God’s got his own interpretation of fresh.” The preacher patted the perspiration raining down his forehead and continued his fiery message. “F-R-E-S-H. The Lord wants his saints to be fresh. You want to know how the Lord wants you to be fresh?” The congregation chorused a resounding yes.

“To be reverent, respectful, positive. ‘F’ meaning being focused — ‘R,’ having responsibility — ‘E’ for developing a level of efficiency, something to distinguish you from everyone else — ‘S,’ meaning self-sufficient, having self-esteem — and finally ‘H,’ being holy, having hope.” Sister Staten stood up, clapping and uttering a loud “Amen.”

“A man worries about dying while he’s living, but he should be worrying about what dies in him while he lives.”

When the choir marched down the aisle robed in flowing gowns, singing the postlude, led by Jackson’s cousin’s wife, Mae Thelma, a nodding Jackson suddenly became wide awake. Ginger felt a tinge of jealousy, wishing with all her heart that she were blessed with such an amazing voice.

Mae Thelma’s soprano voice, melodic, and spiritual, left the entire congregation misty-eyed, filling their hearts with supreme pleasure.

The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage

As Mae Thelma gathered her boys from the children’s church, several of the sisters stopped to compliment her on her wonderful solo. With a thick, southern drawl she answered softly, saying, “Why thank you, Sister Washington, Sister Armory, and may God bless the both o’ ya.” Mae Thelma shook their hands, smiling from ear to ear, gold crowns glittering on her two front teeth.

“Robert Earl Jr., David Earl, you chillins come on heah now. We gotta hurry afore we miss the church van.”

“Mama,” her eldest son, Robert Earl Jr., said, “when you gonna learn how to drive Daddy’s car? I’m tired of riding that bus. We can’t even stop and get some goodies afore we go home. You promised us three months ago you was gonna take driving lessons. Why can’t Uncle Jackson teach you how to drive?”

“Hush boy, here they come now.” Mae Thelma had already secretly appealed to Jackson for help. She had some knowledge, but was scared to drive in the unpredictable Michigan weather. Back home in Guntown, Mississippi, where she and Jackson grew up, she’d never even seen a flake of snow. But she didn’t know how long her husband, Robert Earl, would be in jail. She was all alone now with two young boys who needed a man to set an example of how to grow up Black in this White man’s society.

Mae Thelma stood five feet eight inches tall, with hair that tumbled to her petite waistline. Beautiful black wavy hair that she always wore in a french braid coiled atop her head like a halo when she was in church, which was five out of seven days a week. Her skin tone was the color of a ripe Georgia peach, as smooth as the finest leather, and thick black eyelashes bordered her slanting, exotic eyes.

She moved quickly toward Jackson, smiling provocatively. The heavenly essence of honeysuckle floated around her. “We’ve been looking for you,” said Jackson, hugging Mae Thelma and patting her boys casually atop their heads.

They were always happy to see their Uncle Jackson, as they called him, even though their father and he were only first cousins. He drove a motorcycle. How could anybody who drove a motorcycle as fast as he did be anything but cool?

Jackson looked immaculate in his charcoal gray double-breasted pinstriped suit. His eager smile as he admired his cousin’s saintly wife looked somewhat devilish, like that of a young man with silent temptations. “Ginger and I would like to invite you and the boys over for dinner next Sunday after church,” he offered. The shouts of glee from her boys elicited a smile from Jackson. But the children beside Ginger stiffened and whispered among themselves.

Ginger prodded Jackson to answer her questioning eyes as to when all this inviting had been decided. Besides, she’d already made other plans.

“Sweetheart,” said Ginger, getting in the car and buckling her seat belt, “I already invited Kim, Bill, Aunt Jewel, and Mama over for dinner next Sunday. You could’ve asked me first before you extended invitations. After all, we both know who is going to be doing the cooking, and it certainly ain’t you.”

Jackson wove the Bronco through the maze of cars lined up behind the church. He stopped at the light and turned toward Ginger. “You could’ve also mentioned to me that you’d invited your cousin and her fiancé over. Katherine, Kim, and her mother I can deal with, but Bill — You know perfectly well I can’t put up with Bill and his militant speeches for more than ten minutes.”

“Well, bucko, an afternoon with the sanctimonious Mae Thelma talking about God every two minutes is a little more than I can tolerate myself. And those bad-ass little heathens she’s got. She needs to stop spending so much time praising the Lord and whip their little asses. I swear I’m gonna slap that little David Earl one of these days.”

She paused for a moment. “Have you forgotten the last time they were over he knocked that ivy hanging plant on my white carpet?” The sound of leather crunching as Jackson shifted uncomfortably sliced the mounting tension in the air. He loved his precious plants; if anything got his attention, that would. “And you know I’ve tried everything, and that stain still won’t come up.”