Somebody's Someone (17 page)

“Oh, hell, I don’t know. I ain’t gonna say. I don’t want you holdin’ me to nothing in case it don’t come out right.” Since Sister was coming to live with Ruby and us, I thought it’d be a good chance to ask her something that I’d been holding on to for a while.

“Ruby.”

“Um—uh!” From the way she answered me, I could sense that she might’ve been tired of talking to me. I could just feel it.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Not if you gonna keep asking ’em.”

“Will you get mad at me if I ask?”

“Hurry the hell up and say the damn question, Regina, ’fore I change my mind!”

“Are you Doretha Ann’s real mama?” There, I’d asked the question that’d sat in my belly for a long time. Now it was up to Ruby to set the record straight.

“Looka here, li’l girl, I’m a grown woman, and I ain’t up on lettin’ some child of mine go round asking me dumb questions. Ain’t nobody but Johnnie Jean done started that shit ’bout me not being Doretha’s mama. I’m a tell you one time and one time only, I’m the girl’s mama—period. You prob’ly already know too damned much ’bout me being thirteen when ya’ sister was born. And that’s none of nobody’s fuckin’ business, you hear? If ya’ gonna tell the story, tell it right! That old witch Thornhill made me leave Doretha when she was a baby. Every time I tried to get her, she threatened to call the police on me and say that I was a minor and a unfit mother. I hope I set the record straight and you ain’t got no more childish questions ’bout who’s who to what. Now go on outside and try and be a child.”

“All right,” I replied, and left it alone as I swallowed hard to make sure I could still breathe. I didn’t feel so right pushing her for more, and she wasn’t gonna have it any ole way. Plus, the way I seen it was, if she wanted to talk more ’bout Doretha or any of us, she could in her own good time. Just from sitting and listening, I knowed I could never tell Ruby ’bout what happened out in south Austin or ask her why she left me there. I knowed it was too much for her ears to hold. Her eyes had seen too much already.

“And r’member this, Regina, I’m the one that gets the last word.”

My days was filled with getting to know my new home and the folks round it. Since it was so close to summertime when I came to Ruby, she didn’t even bother putting me in school for the last coupla weeks. She said it would be a waste of time, so she gave me a extra early vacation. That was fine by me. I got that much longer to play on my own, and I got to read new books that Ruby bought me by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott whenever I wanted—Ruby brought the books for me from a li’l white girl’s family she worked for, and I sho’ was happy for it.

I learned most of my neighborhood information out from my next-door neighbor Nichelle and her daddy, Kenny. Nichelle told me, “Now you can go on and say hi to whoever you want to, but leave that Miss Ida ’lone. ’Cause she don’t care much for folks meddling in her business, specially kids.” I not only heard that Miss Ida could kill off a chicken, but that she was the meanest lady on the block. I wasn’t worried ’bout nobody being mean after knowing Lula Mae. Plus I’d learned in Sunday school class that all of us had a piece of nice in us somewhere, so I was to look for it, no matter what.

I got my chance to meet the old crotchety neighbor Miss Ida first hand while I was picking pecans off her tree branches that hung over the fence which divided our yards. Since I didn’t want to dig round in that sorry li’l creek for tadpoles, I thought I could gather and bag pecans and sell ’em, figurin’ I’d make some extra money to buy the sweets that I so loved to eat.

“Hey now, what you thinkin’ ’bout there? Those is mine, and I don’t remember saying you could have some for yourself.”

Man, did she look like Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain. I wondered if she played basketball too. ’Cause from the looks of her she could’ve been a whole team by herself. “Are you a basketball player?” I asked her.

“What kind of nonsense is you talkin’? Have you ever seen a woman as old as me play basketball before?”

I hadn’t really thought ’bout how old she was.

“I know what you’re doin’. Yeah. You trying to fake me out, so that I cain’t see that you stealing my nuts. I’m on to ya all right. And as far as picking goes, if you wanta pick so you can make some change, you ought to join me and the others on the weekends, and go on down to Masie’s blueberry farm. There you can do all the picking you want and get paid for it. And furthermore, you can call me Miss Ida. Everybody does, and it specially don’t sound right for kids to be calling grown peoples by they first name.” Miss Ida seemed to growl when she talked. Like the words had to fight each other to get out her mouth. I didn’t mind that. Even though she came off like a real tough one, I could take whatever she had to dish out, mainly ’cause she wasn’t calling me names or making me feel bad ’bout myself. She said what needed to be said and still was wanting to be my friend.

“Well, since you already at it, why don’t ya go on and pick yourself a few more bags this time—just next time ask me first. You ain’t from round here, is ya? Where’bouts ya from? I can tell from ya’ accent you from up Narth, ain’t ya?”

“Nah, I’m from Texas.” Seemed like she was barely gonna let me get a word of my own in.

“Who’s you kin to in that there house?”

“The lady Ruby’s my mama.”

“Uh-huh. She been living here a long while. How come I haven’t seen you before?”

“I don’t know.” I pulled my shoulders up towards my ears and let ’em fall back in place as I answered Miss Ida.

“Here ya go; this is a double pecan and might just bring you twice the price.” Miss Ida handed me a nut that looked like it was a Siamese twin. I put it in my bag and said, “Thank you, Miss Ida.”

That was the beginning of our getting to know each other. Most folks thought that Miss Ida paid way too much mind to other people’s business. She knowed everything ’bout everybody. Nothing could cross her way without her knowing. But all that was just fine by me.

When summer finally did come, and the boys was home with me, I had to find ways to keep us all busy. Even though the boys had lived in Jacksonville for a long while, they wasn’t let to run the streets like me, and didn’t know ’bout the goings-on in the neighborhood. After I’d been there awhile I’d take ’em with me to Masie’s blueberry patch, and we learned to pick as many as four dollars’ worth of blueberries in one day. Since the boys was pretty good when they went, I would give ’em a li’l something to keep ’em happy. They was really too small to be standing in the hot sun, so I let ’em run round the bushes in a attempt to cool themselves off after we’d get the baskets started. If they was good and didn’t cut up a ruckus too much, I’d give ’em a portion of what was made. That way everybody got what they wanted: money to shop at the candy store. If we wasn’t out picking berries and spending our earnings on candy, we would hang out with the other neighborhood kids and run up and down the streets pretending we was all track-and-field stars.

I couldn’t believe it, but it took three times straight for me to beat everybody in the neighborhood running. It didn’t take long for word to get round that there was a new girl about who could “smoke you in yo’ tracks.” Seeming like every time I turned round somebody was knocking at our door and I was being put up to trying to outrun the fastest they had. It was all going good until Phyllis came along. Man, she had to be the prettiest dark girl I’d ever seen. She didn’t look like the black folks I was used to setting eyes on, with her long wavy braids that flapped behind her as she left you in the dust. Her plaits was so long, they made me wanna climb right up one of ’em and just take a seat on her shoulders while she ran.

Anyway, Phyllis and me had to race each other. I can still hear li’l Ed’s voice screamin’, “Runners on yo’ mark!” Here, me and Phyllis bent down on one knee while the other was stretched out behind us. And we leant forward on our fingertips. “Get set!” We lifted our behinds in the air and leaned a li’l more forward.
“Go!”
We was off! I’d learned to never look behind myself when runnin’ ’cause it would only slow me down. But with Phyllis, I didn’t have to worry ’bout that ’cause she was the one doing all the looking back. By the time she busted through the string that Ruby’s two boys was holdin’ on each side of the street, I was barely halfway behind her. And nobody was holding no string for me by the time I did cross the pretend finish line. For weeks I had to listen to, “Ooh, you got whooped by Phyllis.” And Phyllis this and Phyllis that—it took a long time to live that one down, but it was okay, ’cause nobody could beat her; and I was just the latest fool that proved it! Plus I got to hang out with her sometimes, but not for too long ’cause she was way older than me and didn’t want li’l folks taggin’ round her too much. But every now and again she would come over to our side of the street, and we would do relays and other kinda runnin’ games.

When I wasn’t hanging with Nichelle, and li’l Ed, or any of the other kids in the neighborhood, or listening to Miss Ida tell me more than any child needed to know ’bout lost womens and the ill-willed mens they kept, I was up in Ruby’s face. That is, when I could catch up with her in b’tween her two jobs and parties. Not only did Ruby work for the Springfield Hospital doing her LVN duties in the intensive-care department from eleven to seven, but she also worked in private home care where she’d go to a ole white man’s house and clean his bedpans and wipe his dirty ass. Ruby complained that the ole man was a sorry case for the way his grown kids would let the shit cake up on his back till Ruby came and scraped it off with a rubber spatula. Ruby said that she didn’t understand why whites like to have other folks come and take care of they own. In this case, though, she s’posed it was ’cause the old man’s kids could stand him ’bout as much as they could the smell of his shit. Ruby would just go on and say how she ’magined she’d be no betta’ off than the white man for the way she’d treated us. “I know y’all are gonna just let me rot in my own piss when I get old. I can just see it now. But I guess I couldn’t blame y’all for how you’d treat me since I ain’t never been that good a mother to you.”

I just listened to her. There’d be no way that I could change her mind to think different, so I’d let her go on and on, which she usually did while pouring herself just one more drink to keep her fire burning. But secretly I promised myself to never let shit get caked on Ruby’s back, no matter what.

When Ruby wasn’t b’tween them jobs, I’d spend my time watching and helping her get ready for some function. It didn’t matter what was going on in town—Ruby seemed to be able to find herself caught right up in it. And if nothin’ was happening round town Ruby was either going out to the base with her friend-girls or inviting folks over to our carport for a cookout. Now the barbecue part wasn’t so bad, it’s just that it usually meant that there would also be card games of spades and gin rummy, too much scotch and Annie Green Springs wine, and fights ’bout who messed with whose man. Me and Nichelle and li’l Ed would hang out with the grown folks as long as we could.

But it wasn’t no time a’tall till the cuss words started flying through the air along with fists, food, tables, and finally even the threat of guns. No doubt, Ruby was always in the middle of the mess. From where I stood I could see why Ruby had a hard time keeping her word to folks like me and Sister. And I’m for certain she really didn’t mean no harm. It’s just that my mama said too many things to too many people when she was liquored up, and by the next day, she wouldn’t r’member a word she’d said and expected life to just go on like she the one in charge of making it all happen.

There was this one time when Ruby accused her best friend-girl Lola of wanting to do the nasty with Mr. Benny. I overheard the whole story and thought it was real stupid. Now the woman Lola had been round our house on several occasions, and each time Ruby was certain something was going on, ’cause she was picking fights with everybody in the house; but she never said a word to Mr. Benny. That is until she got full as a tick real quick-like on that scotch.

“Hey, Gina, go call Lola and tell her to come on over, I wanta talk to her.”

I didn’t bother to ask Ruby why; I just called. “Hi, Lola? Ruby needs you to come right on over.” I hung the phone up and stood where I was, staring at Ruby as she drank a li’l bit more.

“Why don’t cha go on outside and play with the boys?”

“Cain’t I stay here with you?”

“Nah now, go on out from under me, shit. Don’t start gettin’ on my nerves.”

Seemed to me like I was already on her nerves. I felt myself getting hot in my throat, ’cause I didn’t wanna show her that what she said hurt my feelin’s, and I didn’t wanna get her going; so I left well enough alone—specially since I knowed she was drinkin’. I was also starting to see that Ruby wasn’t a’tall what I’d hoped for her to be: a nice woman who wanted to dote all over me since she ain’t seen me most of my life. But I don’t think Ruby cared that she hadn’t seen me. I don’t think it’d even crossed her mind. As a matter of fact, I didn’t talk with or to my mama that often. Seemed to me that Ruby was betta’ if you just did stuff for her, then hurried up and got on outta her face. As long as she was getting somethin’ from you things was fine, but if I wanted to “sit up under her” as she put it, that wasn’t all right. So when she did tell me to go and do something, I did it without asking too many questions, even though she hurt my feelings a lot. I went outside like I’d been told to do.

I found the boys sitting out back near the creek with play fishing poles. They looked like they was aiming to catch whatever came they way. I sat down next to ’em and picked rocks out the grass and tossed ’em in the water. When the boys yelled at me and said I was scaring the fish away, I told ’em that the fish would think the rocks was food and come to see if there was more. They believed me. I didn’t bother to tell ’em that there was nothing close to being a fish in that silly creek.

After hearing what I thought to be gunshots, I ran in the house to see what in heaven’s name was going on up in there. What I thought was shots turned out to be folding chairs flying through the air and landing on walls and floors or whatever they was aiming at.