The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou (83 page)

Clyde had little to say. The loquacious, beautiful and bubbling child I had left had disappeared. In his place was a rough-skinned, shy boy who hung his head when spoken to and refused to maintain eye contact even when I held his chin and asked, “Look at me.”

That evening I went in to hear him say his prayers dully, and when I bent to kiss him good night he clung to me with a fierceness that was frightening. In the very early hours of the morning I heard a faint knock at my door.

I turned on the light and said, “Come in.”

My son tiptoed into the room. His face was puffy from crying. I sat upright. “What’s the matter?”

He came to my bed and looked at me directly for the first time since my return. He whispered, “When are you going away again?”

I put my arms around him and he fell sobbing on my chest. I held him, but not my own tears.

“I swear to you, I’ll never leave you again. If I go, when I go, you’ll go with me or I won’t go.”

He fell asleep in my arms and I picked him up and deposited him in his own bed.

Disorientation hung in my mind like a dense fog and I seemed to be unable to touch anyone or anything. Ivonne was happily married at last; she introduced me to her new husband, but my interest was merely casual. At home I played favorite records, but the music sounded thin and uninteresting. Lottie prepared elaborate meals especially
for me, and the food lay heavily on my tongue—it had to be forced down a tight, unwilling throat. Mother and I showed each other the letters we had received from Bailey. The sadness I experienced in Europe when I read the mail had obviously been left abroad, and now rereading his poignant and poetic tales of prison life left me unmoved.

I was aware that I was not acting like the old Maya, but it didn’t matter much. My responses to Clyde, however, did alarm me. I wanted to hold him every minute. To pick him up and carry his nine-year-old body through the streets, to the store, to the park. I had to clench my fists to keep my hands off his head and face whenever I sat near him or moved past him.

Clyde’s skin flaked with scales and his bedclothes had to be changed each day in an attempt to prevent new contagion. I had ruined my beautiful son by neglect, and neither of us would ever forgive me. It was time to commit suicide, to put an end to accusations and guilt. And did I dare die alone? What would happen to my son? If my temporary absence in Europe caused such devastation to his mind and body, what would become of him if I was gone forever? I brought him into this world and I was responsible for his life. So must the thoughts wind around the minds of insane parents who kill their children and then themselves.

On the fifth day home I had a lucid moment, as clear as the clink of good crystal. I was going mad.

Clyde and I were alone in the house. I shouted at him. “Get out. Go outside this moment.”

“Where, Mother?” He was stunned at the violence in my voice.

“Outside. And don’t come back, even if I call you. Out.”

He ran down the stairs as I picked up the telephone. I ordered a taxi and telephoned the Langley Porter Psychiatric Clinic.

“I am sorry. There’s no one here to see you.”

I said, “Oh, yes. Someone will see me.”

“Madame, we have a six-month waiting list.”

“This is an emergency. My name is Maya Angelou. Someone will see me.”

I grabbed a coat and went to sit on the steps. Clyde came running
around from the backyard when he heard the cab stop. He squinted his eyes as if he were about to cry. “You’re going away?”

I said, “I’m just going to see a friend. You go back in the house. I’ll be home in an hour or so.”

I saw him watching the taxi until we turned the corner.

The receptionist was not alarmed at my hysteria. “Yes, Miss Angelou. Doctor will see you now, in there.” She showed me to a door.

A large, dark-haired white man sat behind the desk. He indicated a seat. “Now, what seems to be the trouble?” He put his hands on the desk and laced his fingers. His nails were clean and clipped short. His good suit was freshly pressed. He looked muscular. I thought he’s probably one of the tennis players who drive expensive sports cars and his wife has Black servants who wash her underclothes and bring her breakfast on a tray.

“Are you troubled?”

I started to cry. Yes, I was troubled; why else would I be here? But what could I tell this man? Would he understand Arkansas, which I left, yet would never, could never, leave? Would he comprehend why my brilliant brother, who was the genius in our family, was doing time in Sing Sing on a charge of fencing stolen goods instead of sitting with clean fingernails in a tailor-made suit, listening to some poor mad person cry her blues out? How would he perceive a mother who, in a desperate thrust for freedom, left her only child, who became sick during her absence? A mother who, upon her return, felt so guilty she could think of nothing more productive than killing herself and possibly even the child?

I looked at the doctor and he looked at me, saying nothing. Waiting.

I used up my Kleenex and took more from my purse. No, I couldn’t tell him about living inside a skin that was hated or feared by the majority of one’s fellow citizens or about the sensation of getting on a bus on a lovely morning, feeling happy and suddenly seeing the passengers curl their lips in distaste or avert their eyes in revulsion. No, I had nothing to say to the doctor. I stood up.

“Thank you for seeing me.”

“If you’d like to make another appointment—”

I closed his door and asked the receptionist to call a taxi.

I gave the driver the address of Wilkie’s studio. I arrived in the middle of a lesson. He took one look at me and said, “Go into my bedroom. There’s a bottle of scotch. I have another student after this one, then I’ll cancel for the rest of the afternoon.”

I sat on his bed and drank the whiskey neat and listened to the vocalizing in the next room. I didn’t know what I was going to say to Wilkie, but I knew I would feel better talking to him than to that doctor, to whom I would be another case of Negro paranoia. I telephoned home and told Lottie where I was and that I’d be home soon.

The piano was finally silent and Wilkie opened the bedroom door. “O.K., old sweet nappy-head thing. Come on and talk to Uncle Wilkie.”

I walked out into the studio and collapsed in his arms.

“Wilkie, I can’t see any reason for living. I went to a psychiatrist and it was no good. I couldn’t talk. I’m so unhappy. And I have done such harm to Clyde …”

He held me until I finished my babbling.

“Are you finished? Are you finished?” His voice was stern and unsympathetic.

I said, “Well, I guess so.”

“Sit down at that desk.” I sat.

“Now, see that yellow tablet?” There was a legal-size yellow pad on the blotter. “See that pencil?” I saw it.

“Now, write down what you have to be thankful for.”

“Wilkie, I don’t want silly answers.”

“Start to write.” His voice was cold and unbending. “And I mean start now! First, write that you heard me tell you that. So you have the sense of hearing. And that you could tell the taxi driver where to bring you and then tell me what was wrong with you, so you have the sense
of speech. You can read and write. You have a son who needs nothing but you. Write, dammit! I mean write.”

I picked up the pencil and began.

When I reached the end of the page I began to feel silly. I was alive and healthy. What on earth did I have to complain about? For two months in Rome I had said all I wanted was to be with my son. And now I could hug and kiss him anytime the need arose. What the hell was I whining about?

Wilkie said, “Now write, ‘I am blessed. And I am grateful.’ ”

I wrote the line.

“It’s time for you to go to work. I’ll call you a cab. Stop at the theatrical agency on your way home and tell them you’re ready to go to work. Anywhere, anytime, and for any decent amount of money.”

When he walked me to the door he put his arm around my shoulders. “Maya, you’re a good mother. If you weren’t, Clyde wouldn’t have missed you so much. And let Uncle Wilkie tell you one last thing. Don’t ask God to forgive you, for that’s already done. Forgive yourself. You’re the only person you can forgive. You’ve done nothing wrong. So forgive yourself.”

I told the agent I would accept any job and the only stipulation was that I had to have transportation and accommodation for my son. He was surprised at the unusual request, but we signed contracts and I went home.

My lighter mood influenced everyone. I told funny stories about the singers and stopped lying about how miserable I had been.

Mother said, “Well, at least. I knew you had to have some good times.”

Lottie was cheered by my new appetite and planned even more elaborate meals for my pleasure. And Clyde began to tell me secrets again. He resurrected Fluke and the two of them held interminable conversations in the house’s one bathroom. I took him out of school for a week and we spent days riding bikes in Golden Gate Park and having picnics on the grass.

Before my eyes a physical and mental metamorphosis began as gradually and inexorably as a seasonal change. At first the myriad bumps dried and no fresh ones erupted. His skin slowly regained its smoothness and color. Then I noticed that he no longer rushed panting to my room to assure himself that I was still there. And when I left the house to shop we both took the parting normally, with a casual “See you in a minute.” His shoulders began to ride high again and he had opinions about everything from the planning of meals to what he wanted to be called.

“Mother, I’ve changed my name.”

I’m certain that I didn’t look up. “Good. What is it today?”

In the space of one month, he had told Fluke and the rest of the family to call him Rock, Robin, Rex and Les.

“My name is Guy.”

“That’s nice. Guy is a nice name.”

“I mean it, Mother.”

“Good, dear. It’s quite a nice name.”

When I called to him later in the day, he refused to answer. I stood in the doorway of his room watching him spraddled on the bed.

“Clyde, I called you. Didn’t you hear me?”

He had always been rambunctious, but never outright sassy.

“I heard you calling Clyde, Mother, but my name is Guy. Did you want me?”

He gave me a mischievous grin.

Mother, Lottie and I failed for a time to remember his new name.

“Aunt Lottie, if you want me, call for Guy.”

“Grandmother, I have named myself Guy. Please don’t forget.”

One day I asked him quietly why he didn’t like Clyde. He said it sounded mushy. I told him about the Clyde River in Scotland, but its strength and soberness didn’t impress him.

“It’s an O.K. name for a river, but my name is Guy.” He looked straight into my eyes. “Please tell your friends that I never want to be called Clyde again. And, Mother, don’t you do it either.” He remembered “Please.”

Whenever anyone in the family called him Clyde, he would sigh like a teacher trying to educate a group of stubborn kindergarten students and would say wearily, “My name is Guy.”

It took him only one month to train us. He became Guy and we could hardly remember ever calling him anything else.

I received a telegram from Hawaii:

The three women who owned the hotel and night club met us at the airport dressed in long, colorful Hawaiian dresses. They were white Americans, but years in the islands had tanned their skins and loosened their inhibitions. Ann, a tall blonde and one-time professional swimmer, smiled warmly and draped fresh leis around our necks. Verne, the shortest of the trio, kissed us, while Betty, handsome and rugged, clapped our backs, grabbed our bags and herded the company into a car.

On the drive to Waikiki I imagined Bing Crosby and a saronged Dorothy Lamour standing under palm trees, singing “Lovely Hula Hands.” The air was warm and moist and the perfume of our flowers filled the car. Guy asked how deep I thought the ocean was and if there were any sharks. And did they have any life guards?

The Clouds was near the sea, at an angle from the vast and elegant Queen’s Surf Hotel, which jutted pink stucco towers near Diamond Head.

We were shown to our separate rooms with a connecting bath and invited to have our first dinner with my employers.

Guy and I took a walk and happiness wound him up so tight he chattered incessantly. We went along the beach and he ran forward and back, laughing to himself, grabbing my hand to pull me along faster, then letting go in impatience and racing off alone.

After dinner and after his prayers, he told me he had left Fluke at home, because Fluke couldn’t swim. I reminded him to wake me in the morning and after we had breakfast I’d change a traveler’s check so that he’d have some cash. After he went to sleep, I found Ann and Betty. They showed me the club and we drank and talked late into the night.

I awakened and looked at my watch. It was ten-thirty. I thought the long plane trip had exhausted Guy because he usually got up before seven. There was no answer when I knocked on our connecting door. I tried the knob, but the lock had been turned. I went out and tried the hall door leading to his room. It, too, was locked. I called the maid and explained that my young son was sleeping and I was unable to wake him. She unlocked the door. The room was empty. I didn’t panic at first. I thought he had decided to let me sleep and one of the owners had taken him downstairs to eat in the hotel restaurant.

I asked the waiter where I could find my son. He said no children had been in the restaurant that morning. Betty was in her office. She said Verne and Ann were still asleep and she hadn’t seen him but I shouldn’t worry—he’d probably just gone for a walk.