Mama (2 page)

She was just about to look for the skillet when she heard Crook stagger in the side door. Her rage welled up from a hollow cave in her stomach. "Oooooooo! You just irks me so. I'm surprised I ain't had a nervous breakdown by now. Always making a mountain out of a frigging molehill. Thinking thangs is happening when ain't nothing happening. You can't see for looking, you know that? I keep saying to myself, Mildred, leave this pitiful excuse for a man. I keep saying, Mildred, you know in your heart he ain't no good. Rotten, sorry. But how I'ma leave him with five growing kids to clothe and feed?" Her teeth felt like chalk and she scraped them together so hard that they slipped and she bit her tongue.

"Lord, have mercy on my soul," Mildred pleaded. "If somebody could show me the light, clear a path and give me an extra ounce of strength, I'd be out of here so damn fast make your head swim." Mildred was not a religious person, but she made sure her kids went to Shiloh Baptist every Sunday morning, though the only time she ever bothered to go herself was on Easter, Mother's Day, and Christmas. She shook her head back and forth, letting her eyes roll like loose marbles.

"Just keep on running your mouth, girl," Crook said, trying unsuccessfully to kick off his shoes.

Mildred's anger was flowing like hot lava. Pearls of sweat slid down her temples. Her jawbone was tightening as though she were biting down on rock candy.

"If I was trying to flirt with somebody for real, do you think I'd be stupid enough to do it right in front of your frigging face?" She put her hands on her hips and took soldier steps toward Crook. She didn't know where she was getting this courage from and surely it couldn't have been from God because he'd never given her any clue that being a fool would get her anywhere safe. "But you know what? Yeah, I'd love to screw Percy since you and everybody else swear I've been screwing him for years anyway. Who else was I supposed to be flirting with behind your back? Oh yeah, Porky and Joe Porter and Swift! I'd love to fuck all of 'em!"

"Mildred, you better shut your mouth up, girl. You know you're gon' get it. You know I ain't two minutes away from your behind." Crook had managed to get his shoes off, scattering wet red and gold leaves that had stuck to his soles. He slipped and fell backward against the china cabinet and plaster-of-Paris knickknacks tumbled all over the floor. He danced over the glass grapes, wishing wells, and miniature cats as though he were walking on hot sand at the beach.

Mildred didn't care at this point. She knew that whether she kept her mouth shut or open, she was going to get it anyway. His fist would snap against her head, or the back of his hard hand would swipe her face, or he'd hurl her against a wall until her brains rattled. It was always something, so long as it hurt.

Crook stumbled toward the living room and into the bedroom. He found his thick brown leather belt, the one Mildred occasionally used to chastise the kids for their wrongdoings, then he walked back out to the dining room. He pulled his shoulders back high, trying to act sober, and beckoned Mildred with his index finger. "Since you so damn smart, let's see if your ass is as tough as your mouth is, girl. Now get in here. You ain't had a good spanking in a while."

Mildred's courage vanished.

"Crook, please, don't. I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said, none of it. I was just running my drunk mouth." Mildred was trying to move backward, away from him, but when she found herself in a corner and couldn't move another inch, she knew she was trapped. There was no one she could call to for help. She didn't want to scare the kids any more than they already were, and Mildred knew they were probably leaning against their bedroom doors, shivering like baby birds in a nest. All she could do was hope that he wouldn't take this any further than the belt to the point where he might just kill her this time. A drunk is always sorry later. "Crook, please don't hit me," she begged. "I promise I won't say another word. Please." Mildred was not the type to beg. Had never begged anybody for anything and now it didn't sound or feel right.

"Get on in here, girl. Your tears don't excite me," he said, snatching her by the wrists. "You think you're so cute, don't you?" Crook's face was contorted and had taken on a monstrous quality. It looked like every ounce of liquor and Indian blood in his body had migrated to the veins in his face. He yanked off her wig and threw it to the floor. Then he made her drop her coat next to it, then her cream knit dress, and then her girdle. When all she had on was her brassiere and panties, he shoved her into the bedroom where she crawled to a corner of the bed. Crook kicked the door shut and the kids cracked theirs. Then they heard their mama screaming and their daddy hollering and the whap of the belt as he struck her.

"Didn't I tell you you was getting too grown?"
Whap.
"Don't you know your place yet, girl?"
Whap.

"Yes, yes, Crook."
Whap.

"Don't you know nothing about respect?"
Whap.
"Girl, you gon' learn. I'm a man, not no toy."
Whap.
"You understand me?"
Whap.
"Make me look like no fool."
Whap.

He threw the belt on the floor and collapsed next to Mildred on the bed. The terror in her voice faded to whimpers and sniffles. To the kids she sounded like Prince, their German shepherd, when he had gotten hit by a car last year on Twenty-fourth Street.

Mildred curled up into a tight knot and tried to find a spot that would shelter her from Crook. She hoped he would fall asleep, but he reached over and turned on the TV. Mildred crept out the end of the bed and put on a slip.

"Where you going?" he asked.

"To the bathroom," she said. She closed the door behind her and headed straight for the kitchen, tiptoed around the broken glass, and opened the oven. She yanked the black skillet out and slung the grease into the sink. Crook heard her and came into the dining room to see what she was doing. Before he knew what was happening, Mildred raised the heavy pan into the air and charged into him, hitting him on the forehead with a loud
throng.
Blood ran down over his eye and he grabbed her and pushed her back into the bedroom. The kids heard them bumping into the wall for what seemed like forever and then they heard nothing at all.

Freda hushed the girls and made them huddle under a flimsy flannel blanket on the bottom bunk bed. "Shut up, before they hear us and we'll be next," she whispered loudly. She tried to comfort the two youngest, Angel and Doll, by wrapping them inside her skinny arms, but it was no use. They couldn't stop crying. Since Freda was the oldest, she felt it was her place to act like an adult, but soon she started to cry too. None of them understood any of this, but when they heard the mattress squeaking, they knew what was happening.

Money ran from his room into Freda's. They all sat on the cold metal edge of the bed where the mattress didn't touch, sniffling, listening. They waited patiently, hoping that after five or ten minutes all they would hear would be Crook's snoring. They prayed that they could all finally go to sleep. But just when they had settled into the rhythm of silence—the humming of the refrigerator, the cars passing on Twenty-fourth Street, Prince yawning on the back porch—their parents' moans and groans would erupt again and poison the peace.

When Money couldn't stand it any more, he tiptoed back to his room. He flipped over his mattress, because the fighting always made him lose control of his bladder. He would say his prayers extra hard and swear that when he got older and got married he would never beat his wife, he wouldn't care what she did. He would leave first.

The girls slid into their respective bunks and lay there, not moving to scratch or even twitch. They tried to inch into their separate dreams but the sound of creaking grew louder and louder, then faster and faster.

"Why they try to kill each other, then do the nasty?" Bootsey asked Freda.

"Mama don't like doing it," Freda explained. "She only doing it so Daddy won't hit her no more."

"Sound like she like it to me. It's taking forever," said Bootsey. Angel and Doll didn't know what they were talking about.

"Just go to sleep," Freda said. And pretty soon the noises stopped and their eyelids drooped and they fell asleep.

The kids were already on the sun porch watching Saturday morning cartoons when Mildred emerged from the bedroom. She had a diaper tied around her head and a new layer of pan-cake makeup on to camouflage the swelling. The kids didn't say anything about the purple patch of skin beneath her eye or her swollen lip. They just stared at her like she was a stranger they were trying to identify.

"What y'all looking at?" she said. "Y'all some of the nosiest kids I've ever seen in my life. Look at this house!" she snapped, trying to divert their attention. "It's a mess. Your daddy was drunk last night. Now I want y'all to brush your teeth and wash those dingy faces 'cause I ain't raising no heathens around here. Freda, make these kids some oatmeal. And I want this house spotless before you sit back down to watch a "Bugs Bunny" or a "Roadrunner," and don't ask me no questions about them dishes. Just pick 'em up and throw that mess away. Cheap dishes anyway. Weren't worth a pot to piss in. Next time I'm buying plastic."

The kids were used to Mildred giving them orders, didn't know any other way of being told what to do, thought everybody's mama talked like theirs. And although they huffed and puffed under their breath and stomped their feet in defiance and made faces at her when her back was turned, they were careful not to get caught. "And I want y'all to get out of this house today. Go on outside somewhere and play. My nerves ain't this"—she snapped her fingers—"long today. And Freda, before you do anything, fix your mama a cup of coffee, girl. Two sugars instead of one, and lots of Pet milk."

Freda had already put water on for the coffee because she knew Mildred was mad. She had picked up the broken dishes, too. She didn't like seeing her mama all patched up like this. As a matter of fact, Freda hoped that by her thirteenth birthday her daddy would be dead or divorced. She had started to hate him, couldn't understand why Mildred didn't just leave him. Then they all could go on welfare like everybody else seemed to be doing in Point Haven. She didn't dare suggest this to her mama. Freda knew Mildred hated advice, so she did what her mama wasn't used to doing: kept her mouth shut.

When Crook finally got up, he smiled at the kids like nothing had happened. And like always on a Saturday morning after a rough night at the Shingle, he had somewhere important he had to go. When Mildred heard the Mercury's engine purring, she felt relieved because she knew she wouldn't have to see him again until late that night when he would most likely be drunk and asking where his dinner was, or tomorrow, when he'd be so hung over that he would walk straight to the bedroom and pass out.

Mildred counted her change and managed to muster up a few dollars. She decided to send the kids to the movies. Told them to sit through the feature twice, which was fine with them.

When they had finally skipped out the door and the house was as clean as an army barracks, Mildred had limped to the back porch and scrounged up the ax.

Her coffee was cold now, so she added some hot water to it and walked slowly into the living room. The house shoe helped cushion her foot against the hard floor, but it still hurt. She collapsed on the orange couch. Good, she thought. No Crook, no kids, and no dog. Mildred looked around the room, scanning its beige walls and the shiny floors she had waxed on her knees yesterday. The windows sparkled because she had cleaned the insides with vinegar and water. She had paid old ugly Deadman five dollars to clean the outsides. The house smelled and looked clean, just the way she liked it.

Her eyes claimed everything she saw. This is
my
house, she thought. I've worked too damn hard for you to be hurting me all these years. And me, like a damn fool, taking it. Like I'm your property. Like you own me or something. I pay all the bills around here, even this house note. I'm the one who scrubbed white folks' floors in St. Clemens and Huronville and way up there on Strawberry Lane to buy it.

Mildred sank back deeper into the couch and propped her good foot on top of the cocktail table. She tucked her lip in and took the diaper off her head. Then she ran her fingers over her thick braids. She began unbraiding them, though she had no intention of doing anything to her hair once it hung loose.

She looked out the window at the weeping willow trees. She remembered when she planted them. And who had had the garden limed? she thought. Paved the driveway and planted all those flowers, frozen under the dirt right now? Me. Who'd cooked hamburgers at Big Boy's and slung coconut cream pies to uppity white folks I couldn't stand to look in the eye 'cause they was sitting at the counter and I was standing behind it? Smothered in grease and smoke and couldn't even catch my breath long enough to go to the bathroom. And who was the one got corns and bunions from carrying plates of ribs and fried chicken back and forth at the Shingle when I was five months pregnant, while you hung off the back of a city garbage truck half drunk, waving at people like you were the president or the head of some parade?

She put her foot back on the floor and lit another cigarette.

Never even made up a decent excuse about what you did with your money. I know about Ernestine. I ain't no fool. Just been waiting for the right time. Me and the kids sitting in here with the lights and gas cut off and you give me two dollars. Say, "Here, buy some pork-n-beans and vanilla wafers for the kids, and if it's some change left get yourself a beer." A beer. Just what I needed, sitting in a cold-ass house in the dark.

Mildred's eyes scanned the faces of her five kids, framed in gold and black around the room.

And you got the nerve to brag about how pretty, how healthy and how smart your kids are. Don't they have your color. Your high cheekbones. Your smile. These ain't your damn kids. They mine. Maybe they got your blood, but they mine.

Mildred had had Freda when she was seventeen, and the other kids had fallen out every nine or ten months after that, with the exception of one year between Freda and Money. Crook had told her he didn't want any more kids until he got on his feet. Freda was almost three months old when Mildred realized she was pregnant again. She was too scared to tell Crook, so she asked her sister-in-law what she should do. Curly Mae told her to take three five-milligram quinine tablets. When that didn't work, she told her to drink some citrate of magnesia and take a dry mustard bath. A week later she went to the bathroom feeling like she was going to have a bowel movement and had a miscarriage.