Authors: Mary Monroe
Mama Ruby (11 page)
CHAPTER 22
T
HERE WERE TIMES WHEN LOLA WANTED TO SLAP RUBY. ESPECIALLY
when she displayed a smug look on her face like she was doing now.
HERE WERE TIMES WHEN LOLA WANTED TO SLAP RUBY. ESPECIALLY
when she displayed a smug look on her face like she was doing now.
���You don’t know? I should hope not! Trust me, you don’t want to grow up too fast, Ruby Jean.”
“But I do want to grow up soon,” Ruby wailed.
“What’s that got to do with that chicken blood trick?”
“I don’t know when I’ll meet me a man, uh, like your husband. There might be one or two before him and, you know how it is. . . .”
“You might get weak? You might not be a virgin by the time you meet your husband-to-be?”
Ruby nodded. “I might get weak and do somethin’ . . . nasty before my time. I want the man I marry to think he’s the first,” Ruby whined. “Like you.”
“Let me tell you somethin’ right now, little girl. Virgins over fifteen around here is as rare as hens’ teeth. Other than you, I sure don’t know none. And I am stupefied that any man in his right mind is dumb enough to think there is. I mean, there is some somewhere, but virgins is
real
rare. And to tell you the truth, I am surprised that one of these boys ain’t already got to you.”
real
rare. And to tell you the truth, I am surprised that one of these boys ain’t already got to you.”
“I’m surprised, too,” Ruby said with a nervous cough. “But like I just said, I will start courtin’ soon and I just—”
Lola held up her hand and gave Ruby an impatient look as they started to remove the clothes, sheets mostly, from the clothesline. “You don’t need but a few drops of blood, see. And you get it when you cut up a chicken. You drain the blood into a cup or somethin’, then you use a spoon or a eyedropper, and you drip the blood into the capsule. It’s so easy, any idiot could do it.” Lola paused and narrowed her eyes to look at Ruby. “What you been up to, girl?”
“Nothin’ yet. Like I said, I don’t see you that often. I want to know this kind of stuff in case me, or one of my friends, need to do it. I think it’s a real good trick.”
“Honey, we women know all kinds of tricks when it comes to sexin’. Since we’re on the subject, I guess I should also tell you how to keep yourself from gettin’ pregnant, huh?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” Ruby muttered, looking over Lola’s shoulder toward Othella’s house. She couldn’t tell her sister that Othella had already shared that information with her. And she certainly couldn’t tell her sister that she had gotten pregnant anyway, knowing that she probably could have prevented it—had she followed Othella’s instructions more diligently, or aborted her pregnancy with a triple dose of that harsh Black Draught laxative. But it was too late for any of that now.
“You douche with bleach and or vinegar every time after you do the deed.” Lola was curious as to why Ruby was staring at her with a look of disbelief on her face. “You don’t believe me?”
“And that’s supposed to keep me from gettin’ pregnant, huh?”
“It’s supposed to, but it don’t always work. I hope you know that.” Lola paused again and gave her sister a very concerned look. “Baby sister, please don’t bring no baby into this world until you know you can take proper care of it. A baby is a gift from God, but sometimes them gifts come before they are supposed to, and the mama ends up sufferin’. . . .”
I know,
Ruby thought, blinking hard and fast to hold back her tears.
Ruby thought, blinking hard and fast to hold back her tears.
“You got somethin’ in your eyes? Why you blinkin’ like that?” Lola wanted to know.
“I got somethin’ in my eyes . . . dust, I guess,” Ruby told her. “Uh, we better hurry up and get them clothes and sheets off the line. I can smell the rain comin’.”
The next couple of days were very difficult for Ruby. She was depressed, she was concerned about her baby, and she was mad with everybody involved. Especially Simone. She was the one who had insisted, no,
forced
Ruby to give up her child. And Othella had not helped Ruby’s case at all. After thinking about it, Ruby felt that Othella should have challenged Simone and insisted that Ruby keep the baby, especially if she thought there was a chance that Ike was the father.
forced
Ruby to give up her child. And Othella had not helped Ruby’s case at all. After thinking about it, Ruby felt that Othella should have challenged Simone and insisted that Ruby keep the baby, especially if she thought there was a chance that Ike was the father.
Ruby was even mad at her father for being so damn eager to help Simone get rid of that poor little innocent baby.
It was another week before she caught Othella and Simone at home.
“If I didn’t know no better, I’d swear y’all been avoidin’ me,” Ruby accused that Saturday around midnight when she’d tiptoed up on the front porch of Simone’s house. Othella had opened the door.
“Other than them bill collectors, we ain’t been hidin’ from nobody,” Othella said in a very defensive manner. “And we sure ain’t got no reason to be hidin’ from you. You are the one that had a baby that nobody knows about.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to y’all about,” Ruby said, brushing past Othella. She sat down hard on the couch next to Simone, who was in a short gown and drinking home-brewed whiskey from a coffee cup. “Simone, did you arrange everything all right with them asylum folks?”
“If you mean did I get that child situated with them nuns, the answer is yes. Now I suggest we don’t talk about this subject no more after tonight,” Simone said hotly. She took a long, loud drink from her cup, frowning as the harsh liquid burned its way down her throat. “That was a major ordeal for me to get caught up in. And”—she paused and looked from Othella to Ruby—“I still ain’t tellin’ neither one of y’all the name or location of that asylum.” She blinked and let out a deep sigh, as if gearing up to deliver even more unpleasant news. “I told them nuns that that baby’s mama died.”
Ruby’s breath caught in her throat, along with a huge lump. She held her breath because it was the only way she could keep herself from crying some more. “You didn’t have to tell them folks that,” she whimpered. “What if . . .”
“What if what?” Simone snapped.
“What if I marry me a real nice understandin’ man, and he wants to adopt my child? We might have to deal with all kinds of red tape with them nuns,” Ruby said firmly. And she meant every word. In her mind, her fantasy was that she would marry a decent, compassionate man (soon she hoped) and she would tell him about her baby. He would insist on retrieving the baby girl and helping Ruby raise her.
“Girl, have you lost your mind? If and when you ever find a husband, you are goin’ to have a hard enough time keepin’ him happy and under control with the normal, everyday problems we all have. And say you did do somethin’ that crazy, like tellin’ your husband you had a baby. What about your mama and daddy? Do you want them to ever find out about this? Well, honey, I am tellin’ you right now, if you do, you better not tell them I was involved in this mess!”
“I wouldn’t tell them nothin’,” Ruby said, her lips trembling. “I don’t want to get you in no trouble, Simone. Not after all you done for me. Honest to God.”
Simone shook her head and her fist. “Lord, why didn’t I send somebody to get your daddy when you first passed out in my house that night?” she muttered, and shot a hot look at Ruby. “Girl, it’s too late to be havin’ pipe dreams about you and a husband and y’all raisin’ that baby and livin’ happily ever after. Now like I said, I ain’t tellin’ you or Othella where that asylum is, or the name of it. So any notions y’all might have down the road about goin’ to get that baby—forget it. Them nuns got it on paper that the mama is dead; a colored retarded cousin of mine that died givin’ birth to that baby. That’s exactly what I told ’em. And y’all both know that when it comes to colored folks, nobody—not even them nuns—is goin’ to be too particular about maintainin’ the proper paperwork after a while. If anything, Ruby, if you was to ever show up there askin’ about a baby, they more than likely will just call the law on you and have you hauled off to jail. They might even wrap you up in a straight jacket and lock you in a room in that same asylum yourself! And I know they would, because I seen ’em do stuff like that all the time. You hear me?”
Ruby stared off into space, but she’d heard every word that had come out of Simone’s mouth. She nodded. She sniffed. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.
Othella looked toward the back of the house to make sure none of her siblings were lurking about. Then she looked at Ruby and spoke in a low but firm voice. “Mama is right. And to tell you the truth, this subject is gettin’ real stale. The sooner we forget about this, the better off we’ll all be.”
“That’s easy for y’all to say.” Ruby sniffed, getting more and more depressed by the second. Her eyes were red and slightly swollen. It was obvious to Simone and Othella that Ruby had been doing a whole lot of crying lately. “What if I can’t never have no more babies?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that none. You look right fertile to me. And there will always be some boy, or some man, willin’ to stick his pecker in you and fill you up with his baby-makin’ batter. Like I tell everybody, sex is like gumbo. As long as it’s available, even when it’s bad, it’s good. And that’s all that boys and men care about when it comes to that. Othella, go in that kitchen yonder and pour Ruby Jean a glass of beer. She looks like she could use some.”
CHAPTER 23
R
UBY’S DEPRESSION BECAME SO SEVERE THAT HER PARENTS
were more than a little concerned. They didn’t know what was bothering their daughter, and no matter how much they tried to pry the information out of her, they had no luck.
UBY’S DEPRESSION BECAME SO SEVERE THAT HER PARENTS
were more than a little concerned. They didn’t know what was bothering their daughter, and no matter how much they tried to pry the information out of her, they had no luck.
“Ruby, whatever it is that’s got you walkin’ around with such a long face, it can’t be so bad that you can’t talk to us about it,” her mother said for what seemed like the hundredth time to Ruby. Her father usually said something similar, or sometimes the exact same things her mother said.
“Ain’t nothin’ the matter with me,” she mumbled each time they asked.
Ruby’s sisters and several other relatives also tried to find out from Ruby what was bothering her. But like always, Othella was the only person that she felt comfortable telling some of her troubles to. Lately, Othella didn’t even have to ask Ruby why she was so depressed.
“I just miss my baby, that’s all,” Ruby said. She and Othella occupied Simone’s back porch steps around eleven-thirty one Friday night, six weeks after the baby’s birth. Ruby was still associating with Othella behind her parents’ backs. Ironically, after all these years, Othella was one reason why her life was so dreary now. And it was all because she had not helped her convince Simone to let her keep her baby. . . .
“It’s too late to do anything about that now. You need to concentrate on things that you can fix,” Othella suggested.
“Like what?”
“Well, your folks still think you too good to hang out with certain peoples,” Othella stopped and gave Ruby a hard look.
“They don’t want me to get ruined,” Ruby explained.
Othella stared at Ruby in slack-jawed amazement. “In
your
case, with them hoity-toity folks of yours, you can’t get no more ruined than pregnant!” she shouted.
your
case, with them hoity-toity folks of yours, you can’t get no more ruined than pregnant!” she shouted.
Ruby gave Othella a disgusted look. “There is worse things that can happen to me than gettin’ pregnant,” she insisted, her bottom lip trembling.
“Yeah—
dead
. Or locked up for life in some dank prison like my uncle Andre for robbin’ a bank.”
dead
. Or locked up for life in some dank prison like my uncle Andre for robbin’ a bank.”
“Your brother treats me like I’m a stranger these days. Some of them other boys I was with, they treat me the same way.” Ruby looked out toward the bushes behind the garden beyond the well. “All them times I went in the bushes with one, and now I can’t get them same ones to give me the time of day.” Ruby looked at Othella and gave her a warm smile. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to talk to, Othella. If you ever left here, I’d go crazy or die. Maybe even both.”
“Ruby, you need to make some more friends. Forget about my brother, and the rest of them hit and run boys, that hit you and ran.”
Ruby shrugged. “As long as I got you, I don’t need no other friends. Eventually, I’ll get another boyfriend, I guess. One that’ll stay my boyfriend for a while.”
“Maybe there’ll be some new boys in our school. I heard somethin’ about some of them sharecropper families havin’ kinfolks movin’ here from Baton Rouge. I know they must have some boys around our age.”
“Oh?” The information that Othella had just revealed obviously pleased Ruby. “That’s good to hear. That’s somethin’ for us to look forward to,” she said eagerly. She was even willing to settle for a sharecropper’s son for a boyfriend now—as long as he was cute and cool.
“It don’t matter to me. I won’t be around too much longer, so I don’t care,” Othella responded, speaking in a flat, detached tone of voice.
Ruby turned her head to the side and gave Othella a confused look, peering at her from the corner of her eye. “What are you talkin’ about, girl? Where you goin’?”
“I ain’t goin’ back to school when it starts back up.” Othella sniffed and sucked in some of the night air. “I’m goin’ to go to New Orleans and find myself a husband. Last year when I was there visitin’ one of Mama’s friends, I seen servicemen all over the place. I wanted to marry me one then. A couple of years ago, Uncle Laurent came back from the army with a bullet in his head, so he gets some kind of army money every month now. Even though he dropped his rifle and it went off accidentally and shot hisself, it don’t matter. The government got money and they give it to men who serve. With his check from the government, and the money that Uncle Laurent makes drivin’ trucks cross country, he treats his wife real good. That’s what I want, a man that can offer me some real security and attention.”
“You leavin’? Why—I can’t believe what I’m hearin’!” Ruby hollered, her eyes opened so wide it looked like they were going to roll out of their sockets. She stood up and faced Othella with her hands on her hips. “You can’t do that! You can’t just run off like that lookin’ for a husband!”
“You just watch me!” Othella retorted, rising. She placed her hands on her hips and got so close to Ruby’s face, Ruby could smell the homemade wine on her breath. “I’m sick of livin’ the way I been livin’ with my mama. She ain’t never goin’ to change for the better. I’m just fifteen but I feel like I’m fifty, cookin’, cleanin’, and takin’ care of all them brothers and sisters of mine while Mama’s havin’ a good time with her men friends.”
Ruby’s lips moved, but no words came out. Suddenly, she started gasping for breath so hard that Othella clapped her on her back. “Ruby, you ain’t all the way healed from havin’ that baby. You don’t need to be makin’ yourself upset.” Othella wrapped her arm around Ruby’s shoulder and guided her back down on the steps. Othella eased onto the steps, patting Ruby’s knee.
“What about me?” Ruby rasped, blinking to hold back her tears.
“What about you?”
Ruby gave Othella a desperate look. “What will I do with myself when you leave here?”
“Ruby, me and you are real good friends. You are the best girlfriend I ever had in my life. But we ain’t joined at the hip; we had to part company sooner or later. I love you to death, but it’s time for me to move on. Now if you want to come with me, that’s fine with me. But I am leavin’ this place.”
“I can come with you?”
“It’s all right with me. But you and me both know, Reverend Upshaw and your mama ain’t goin’ to let you run off with me! They don’t even allow you to walk the street here with me! And don’t even think about runnin’ away without tellin’ them. The last thing I want to have to deal with is the law. Knowin’ your papa, he’ll send the Man after us so fast it’d make your head spin clean off your neck.”
“But if he say I can go with you, I will.”
Othella gave Ruby a pitiful look and then she shook her head. “What did I just say? Your daddy would never in a million years let you leave town with me.”
“When are you leavin’?” Ruby asked in a meek voice. She was so terrified of losing her friend that she didn’t know what she was going to do, if and when that happened.
“I don’t know yet. I got a few dollars saved up, but I need a few more. I figured if I could boost a few more frocks out of that boutique on Saint James Boulevard, I can sell them to get the rest of the money. If so, I think I’ll be leavin’ right after Thanksgivin’.”
“You ain’t goin’ to stay around to celebrate Christmas with your family?”
“I don’t think I can wait that long. Mama is gettin’ lazier and crazier by the day, and I am sick of tendin’ to my baby sisters and cleanin’ and cookin’ and dodgin’ Mama’s men friends. I need a break from this life.”
“I see,” Ruby muttered. She rose without another word and headed home. She crawled back through her bedroom window, crying so hard she could barely see her bed through her tears. Othella’s news had upset her so profoundly, she forgot to say her prayers. She climbed into bed fully clothed and cried herself to sleep. Now she had something else to be depressed about.
When Ruby’s mother got up to fix breakfast the next morning, Ruby was already in the living room staring at the wall.
“What you doin’ up so early, Ruby Jean?” Ida Mae asked. “I’m about to fix breakfast. You want grits, rice, or oatmeal? Ham, sausages, or bacon? White bread, rolls, or biscuits?”
“That’s all right, Mama. I’ll eat somethin’ later,” Ruby said with a weak smile, shaking her head. “I got a lot of things on my mind, so I ain’t got no appetite right now.”
Reverend Upshaw sauntered into the room. He was still in his bathrobe, his face was unshaven, and his hair resembled a burning bush. “What things you got on your mind, girl?” he asked, a grim look on his face. “You ready to talk about why you been cryin’ so much your eyes is red and swollen, and why you been so down in the dumps lately?”
Ruby remained silent for at least a whole minute with her eyes looking down at the floor. Her parents stood side by side, a few feet in front of her. When Reverend Upshaw cleared his throat, Ruby looked up and began to talk in a slow, mechanical manner. “Most of my good friends done moved away, so I ain’t hardly got nobody to hang out with.”
“What about us? What about your family? And Lola and Arlester offered to let you come stay with them at their house for a couple of weeks, if you think that would cheer you up,” Reverend Upshaw said, trying to sound cheerful. “You can spend your whole Christmas vacation from school with them.” He added a smile.
The thought of living in the same house with Lola and Arlester for two weeks made Ruby cringe. She would rather spend her vacation in a dog house! And she didn’t care who knew it.
“I wouldn’t be found dead in the same house with Arlester,” Ruby growled, her lips barely moving. There were times when Ruby actually frightened her parents. She was a good girl, they firmly believed that, but she had inherited some personality traits from a few less than holy members of the family, on both sides. She was moody like her mother’s brother Preston in Slidell. She was opinionated like her father’s deceased sister Della. She walked, talked, and sometimes laughed in the same high pitched way that her father’s oldest brother Moses did. He was in prison for life for killing his wife when she attempted to leave him. Moses was so mean and violent, his own mother had encouraged the district attorney to lock him away for life. Ruby was only four years old when Uncle Moses went to prison, but she had still picked up some of his traits. That was what frightened her parents the most.
“Arlester is a fool,” Ruby added, her lips snapping brutally over each word. “If he don’t stop runnin’ off at the mouth, sayin’ all kinds of stupid stuff to people, somebody is goin’ to hurt him real bad.”
“Well now. That’s one thing that me and Mother agree with you on. I just hope that you ain’t that person to hurt Arlester, or anybody else, real bad. And don’t you worry about all of them outlandish things that Arlester says about you in front of us. Me and Mother don’t buy none of it. We know you better. Don’t we, Mother?” Reverend Upshaw turned to his wife with a stern look on his face. It was the kind of look that made her agree with him, whether she did or not. She agreed with him this time, and the stern look from him had nothing to do with it.
“We want you to be happy, Ruby Jean. Now I know we been real strict with you and that’s because you are our baby. We know when you leave home, we are goin’ to have to get used to a completely empty nest, and that ain’t goin’ to be easy for a couple of old birds like us,” Ida Mae said, her voice cracking. “Now we know you want to start courtin’, but what else do you want to do that might help bring you out of them doldrums you been in lately?”
Ruby swallowed hard. She had already rehearsed what she wanted to say. “Simone’s havin’ a backyard cookout next Friday, and I want to go.” As soon as she’d released the last word, she held her breath. “Uh, I ran into Othella at the store, and she invited me.”
Ruby’s parents were still standing side by side, still staring at her. Their bodies looked as stiff as pillars of salt, and their faces looked like they’d turned to wood.
“I know y’all hate Othella, but she’s always been nice to me in school and when I run into her at the store and stuff. And I think I’m old enough now to decide who I want to be friends with.” Ruby surprised herself at how easy she was able to speak her mind on such an unpopular subject in her parents’ house. And even though she was acting and looking bold and confident, inside she was trembling like a leaf. She didn’t know what to expect from her parents. “With everybody else married and out of the house now, I feel like a loose wheel.”
“What about them Donaldson boys?” Ida Mae asked.
“I wouldn’t go to a dog fight with one of them Donaldson boys! They don’t even use deodorant!” Ruby hollered. She was surprised to see such a frightened look on both of her parents’ faces. “At the rate I’m goin’, I’m goin’ to be a old maid with not a friend in the world. I’ll grow old and die alone. And I wouldn’t have had no real fun in my life.”
The room got so quiet, Ruby could hear the small clock ticking on the wall above the couch. It was like everything in the house and outside had stopped. She couldn’t hear the neighbors laughing and talking back and forth like she did almost every other morning. No cars with loud mufflers, like so many in the neighborhood had, were driving down the street. The chickens in the backyard, which could usually be heard clucking all hours of the day, had suddenly stopped. Reverend Upshaw’s lazy old nameless coon dog was usually barking at something or somebody from the back porch, all hours of the day and night. Well, Ruby couldn’t hear a peep out of that mangy creature now. It was like the whole world had come to a complete standstill, and everybody and everything in it had become mute. But that was not the case. Ruby’s mind had tuned everything out, and it remained that way for at least a full minute. As soon as her mother spoke again, all of the sounds inside and outside the house resumed.
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