Mama (8 page)

It occurred to Mildred that this would be the first time she could make money off of white people. The agent didn't quite see it that way. First, the house would have to be appraised, then he would have to find a suitable buyer; said he didn't want just anybody moving into this house, especially since Mildred had kept it up so nicely. And there was no telling how long it might take to actually sell the house and consummate all the paperwork, which meant she didn't know how soon she would have a check in her hand. So when Faye Love told her there was an opening at Lapper Lakes Nursing Home, and since she was the supervisor and could hire anybody she wanted to on the spot, Mildred took the job.

Two months later, Mildred was so sick of smelling old people she didn't know what to do. Her patience had gotten clogged up like hair in a drain. Curly Mae had told her she should get herself a prescription for nerve pills, and Mildred did. Thought they just might be the plunger. They seemed to do the trick. Pushed about fifty pounds away from her skull, put each little worry into its very own compartment, and gave her the keys to unlock each one when she felt up to it. At first, she didn't take more than she was supposed to—most of the time not as many doses per day as she'd been prescribed. But after a few days of taking them that way, she got so dizzy she slept for almost thirteen hours. Mildred didn't like sleeping that long; she liked knowing what her kids were doing and where they were at all times. When she came home from work she would pop one and sip on a beer, like she was doing now, standing in the middle of the sun porch in her white uniform, which had a stain on it from where old Mrs. Henry had thrown up on her.

She sipped the foam from the top of the glass and sat down in the recliner. The kids were watching "Wagon Train."

"I got something to tell y'all and I want each and every one of you to keep your mouths closed and listen to every word I have to say, whether you like it or not, you understand?"

Her children turned around to face her.

"Now, y'all know that we've been through a few cold and hungry days, but ain't none of you starved or froze to death, have you? Well, sometimes you have to do thangs in this world that you don't want to do in order to make thangs right when they're wrong, easier when they're hard, you know what I mean?"

They nodded their heads up and down, although they had no idea what she was talking about. They figured if they stayed with her, they would catch on.

"Ain't y'all tired of this old dull mangy town?" Mildred didn't give them a chance to answer. "Wouldn't y'all like to make some new friends and go to a nicer, prettier school? The main reason I'm asking—telling—you this is because your Uncle Leon, the one out there in Arizona, in Phoenix, wants us to move out there with him and his kids. He say they got good jobs out there for colored people, even women, and cheaper, bigger, finer houses, and guess what? It don't even snow out there, and they ain't got those aggravating-ass mosquitoes. Y'all could learn to swim and play outside all year round without no coats and boots or gloves. Don't that sound nice?" She glared at them.

"But, Mama," Freda said, "I just tried out for cheerleading this year—the junior varsity team—and it might be my only chance! I'd be the first colored to ever make it!"

"What will we do with Prince?" Money whined. "He don't like hot weather. And what about my bike? How I'ma get it all the way to Arizona? Where is Arizona anyway? And what about Chunky, and BooBoo and Big Man and Little Man? Ain't gon' have no friends in Arizona."

"What I tell you about saying ain't, boy? You'd thank they didn't teach you how to speak English in school."

Bootsey, Angel, and Doll went along with their older sister and brother. "Yeah, we don't want to move to no Arizona. People die in deserts. How long does it take to get there? Probably weeks," Angel said. The other two huddled near her.

"What's wrong with
this
house?" asked Freda, crossing her arms and making a huffing sound. "We like this house. We don't want to go nowhere and I only got four more years till I graduate."

Mildred had figured as much, but it didn't matter, because her mind was made up. She clenched her fist and started gritting her teeth—this always scared the kids and made them see things her way.

"Look, I know what y'all
likes
to do too. Freda. Girl, you can cheerlead in Arizona. Don't you think they play basketball and football no place else besides Point Haven? They got better high schools than that little rinky-dink one on Twenty-fourth Street. And Money, you can always make new friends, boy, so stop acting like a sissy. And them little hoodlums you hang around with ain't worth a pot to piss in noway. Meet some civilized kids in Arizona. And Prince ain't never told you he didn't like hot weather, did he? Dogs go where their owners go. Look at it this way, most of the colored people in this town ain't never been no farther than Detroit, and it'll give your cousins and friends a good reason to go somewhere new for a change. They can come visit in the summer. Look, I'm trying to thank this thang out and I thank it's gon' be the best damn move I've made in thirteen years, and regardless of who don't like it, I'm the mama and daddy in this house, and we going, as soon as I can get myself situated."

Two weeks later Freda made the cheerleading squad at Chippewa Junior High School and Money ran away from home. Mildred had just come in from work.

"Where's Money?" she asked, kicking off her white hospital shoes in the middle of the dining room floor.

"He ain't, I mean, hasn't come home from school yet," Bootsey said. None of the other kids seemed to know where he was either, and since Money didn't participate in any after-school activities Mildred knew something was wrong. The kids were supposed to come straight home from school and had to do their chores and homework before they were allowed back outside. She said she'd wait a half hour, and as soon as he walked through that door she was going to snatch a knot in his behind.

Mildred was having a nicotine fit. She didn't want to send one of the girls to the store since it was getting dark, but she sent Freda anyway. "Get me two packs of Tareytons, would you? Ask Joe if I can have 'em till I get my check day after tomorrow. If he says yes, then get me three packs." What Mildred didn't know was that the reason her cigarettes had been disappearing so fast was because Freda had been smoking them at home and with her girlfriends after school when she went over to their house to watch "Dark Shadows."

Freda came back with the three packs about ten minutes later. Mildred told her not to take off her coat. She made the other girls put theirs on. "Go find that boy. Look everywhere. Check the Pattersons and the Howells, but don't come back in this house without him."

They were gone almost an hour, and when they returned they were all out of breath. They told Mildred they couldn't find him and no one had seen him.

"That's impossible. Y'all can't tell me that in a town this damn small ain't nobody seen a little nappy-headed colored boy." Mildred called over to Curly Mae's, who sent her boys to look for him. They went straight to the White Rose gas station, which had a pond behind it where they always caught polliwogs in the spring to scare girls.

Money was up to his knees in icy water when they spotted him. He was so cold his brown face was red and snot was running down his nose. Maybe he had thought of drowning himself, they thought, but the water was too cold and too shallow, and besides, he looked more scared than anything.

"Your mama is looking for you, boy, and you gon' get it when you get home. Come on out of there," one of the boys said.

"I ain't going no fucking where. I ain't moving to no damn Arizona. I hate Arizona and I hate my mama even more! I'm gon' drown myself if it kills me!"

But the boys just laughed and counted to three and ran into the pond and dragged him out. Then they tied a rope around his waist like a horse in a rodeo so he couldn't run. As they walked home, all Money could think of was the beating he was going to get.

But Mildred didn't beat him. When she saw him standing there wet and freezing, his teeth chattering and his eyes dilated as if he were in shock, she was too afraid he had caught pneumonia to even think of hitting him. She didn't even scold him or raise her voice one octave. Nor did she hug him, though she wanted to.

"Get out of those wet clothes, boy," she said. "And Freda, make your brother some hot Nestle's Quik. Wouldn't you like some hot cocoa, boy?" Mildred couldn't stop looking into his cat eyes. Then it suddenly occurred to her that he might see in her own eyes her grief and confusion and just how responsible she felt, so she averted her glance. She didn't want Money to know that she was feeling like a collapsing bridge. Mildred also knew that if she hugged him she would be hugging a young Crook and maybe never let the boy go. She watched him gulp down his hot chocolate and sensed he was all right. Then she took another nerve pill and lay down.

That night, huddling on their bunk beds, which they were outgrowing, Mildred's children held a conference over popcorn and Kool-Aid. They decided they would simply boycott the whole idea of moving. Just refuse to go. She'd have to go by herself. After all, she couldn't
make
them go. "Shit, we ain't the one with the divorce problem or the money problem," Freda said.

"And we ain't trying to get away from nothing or nobody. Are we?" Money asked. All of them shook their heads no. The next decision to make was where everybody would live. This took some serious thinking. It soon became clear that Bootsey should stay with their Aunt Georgia since her daughter, Jeanie, was her age. Freda wanted to stay with the Wiggins family because they were clean, like her mama was, and always kept food in the refrigerator (a big consideration for her), and besides, she had a crush on Eric. Angel and Doll would have to stay together and could go with Ruthie Bates because her granddaughter, Cookie, left her dolls and toys in her spare bedroom until she came to visit in the summer from Chicago. Money would stay right next door with Curly Mae. That way, he said, he could keep an eye out on Freda's weeping willow trees. Make sure nobody else sat under them.

"Milly, you sure this is what you want to do, baby?" her daddy asked. Buster was standing at the wringer washer pushing clothes through the rollers. His big stomach was hanging over his pants, and his suspenders were making them hike up so his ankles showed off his white socks. His skin looked red and he was going bald. Miss Acquilla was sitting in the front room watching "The Price Is Right." She was dipping a piece of corn bread into a bowl of sweet milk. Her silver hair was parted down the middle into two thick braids.

"Buster," she called, "you almost finished in there? You know them beans need to be snapped if you want to eat 'em tonight."

Mildred rolled her eyes in Miss Acquilla's direction. She still couldn't stand the woman. She was too bossy and Mildred's daddy was too gullible. He did anything she told him to.

"I'm almost finished, sugarplum," he said.

"To tell you the truth, Daddy," Mildred said, "I don't know. It sound like it might be better for the kids. Who knows, I might be able to find a decent man out there. Leon say they all in the service. They suppose to have some good jobs on the base. Anythang gotta be better than this."

Buster sighed. "You know your daddy would miss you and the kids. Don't too many of y'all come by and visit like you used to. You about the only one. Everybody else always too busy."

"Hell, with your asthma the way it is, you might want to consider coming out there too. They say it's dry heat, which is why a lot of people move out there. So they can breathe."

"Ain't nobody moving way out there," Miss Acquilla yelled from the other room.

"Wasn't nobody talking to you, Acquilla," Mildred said. Buster shook his head back and forth, as if pleading with Mildred to not say anything that would upset Miss Acquilla or get her started on one of her tangents. Mildred waved her hand at him as if to say "Forget her, I'm talking to you."

"I still got a few more years at the foundry before I can retire. The house is paid for, and by the grace of God, I'm still sitting here."

Mildred just shook her head, hugged her daddy,' grunted a goodbye to Miss Acquilla, and stuck ber hand through the hole in the screen door to open it, since the handle was only on the outside.

When the agent told Mildred he had found a buyer, he also told her it would be at least another month before the closing. Mildred immediately made it known to her neighbors and friends that they could walk through her house and take their pick of the junk she was going to leave behind, as long as she wasn't cooking or cleaning. For weeks afterward she made the kids take trips to the grocery store to get empty toilet paper and laundry detergent boxes so they could pack.

"I'm putting all this shit in storage until we can afford to leave. It's gon' take a lot more money than I'ma get from this house for us to move. Plus, I gotta give your daddy some of it. We gon' stay with Lula and Ike for a month or two, until I get some of these bills paid off and get enough money to haul all this mess out there. Maybe buy another car. Then we leaving."

When the kids heard this, there was a lot of heavy moaning. Lula Wilson was Mildred's baby sister and had six dumbbells for kids. They lived in a big old raggedy house on the other side of Twenty-fourth Street where the city had already torn down at least ten homes to make room for the industrial park. Lula had a simple husband whom everybody called Simple Ike, though he wasn't so simple he couldn't take care of his family. He also worked at the foundry, snapping steel parts together for diesel truck engines. Lula was even simpler than Ike was, which is why they got along so well. Everything was funny to them and they were always grinning. The kids, too. The entire family was a bunch of slobs, though.

When the kids saw that Mildred wasn't kidding, they circled around her.

"Mama, they got roaches," said Freda.

"And Junior caught two mice last week in the bathtub, and three upstairs in Linda and Cindy's room," said Bootsey.