The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou (88 page)

John was right. Seven years earlier, when I studied in New York, my attention was unequally distributed between the dance studio where I was studying on scholarship, my son and my first, disintegrating marriage. Truly I had had neither the time nor mind to learn New York.

John’s eyes were blazing, and although I was his only audience, he was as intense as if he were speaking to a filled room.

“I tell you what to do. Go to Manhattan tomorrow. Go first to Times Square. You’ll see the same people you used to see in Arkansas. Their accents might be different, their dress might be different, but if they are American whites, they’re all Southern crackers. Then go to Harlem. Harlem is the largest plantation in this country. You’ll see lawyers in three-piece suits, real estate brokers in mink coats, pimps in white Cadillacs, but they’re all sharecropping. Sharecropping on a mean plantation.”

I intended to see Harlem with John’s advice in mind, but Guy arrived before I had the opportunity. I picked him up at the airport, and when he walked into the house I saw that he was already too large for the living room. We had been separated a month and he seemed to have grown two inches taller and years away from me. He looked at the hastily painted white walls and the Van Gogh prints I had chosen and matted.

“It’s O.K. It looks like every other house we’ve lived in.”

I wanted to slap him. “Well, it’s a little better than the street.”

“Oh, Mother, come now. That wasn’t necessary.” The superiority in his voice was an indication of how he had been hurt by our separation.

I grinned. “O.K. Sorry. How about the desk? You always said you wanted a big office desk. Do you like it?”

“Oh sure, but you know I wanted a desk when I was a little kid. Now …”

The air between us was burdened with his aloof scorn. I understood him too well.

When I was three my parents divorced in Long Beach, California, and sent me and my four-year-old brother, unescorted, to our paternal grandmother. We wore wrist tags which informed anyone concerned that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson, en route to Mrs. Annie Henderson in Stamps, Arkansas.

Except for disastrous and mercifully brief encounters with each of them when I was seven, we didn’t see our parents again until I was thirteen.

Our reunion with Mother in California was a joyous festival, studded with tears, hugs and lipsticked kisses. Under and after the high spirits was my aching knowledge that she had spent years not needing us.

Now my angry son was wrestling with the same knowledge. We had been apart less than a month—he had stayed an unwelcome guest in his own home, while I had gloried in every day of our separation.

He covered the hurt with a look of unconcern, but I knew his face better than my own. Each fold, every plane, the light or shadow in his eyes had been objects of my close scrutiny. He had been born to me when I was an unmarried adventurous seventeen-year-old; we had grown up together. Since he was fatherless most of his fourteen years, the flash of panic in his eyes was exchanged for scorn whenever I brought a new man into our lives. I knew the relief when he discovered the newcomer cared for me and respected him. I recognized the confusion that changed his features each time the man packed to leave. I understood the unformed question. “She made him leave. What will she do if I displease her too?” He remained standing, hands
in his pockets, waiting for me to convince him of the stability of my love. Words were useless.

“Your school is three blocks away, and there’s a large park almost as nice as the one on Fulton Street.”

At the mention of the San Francisco park where we picnicked and he learned to ride a bike, a tiny smile tried to cross his face, but he quickly took control and sent the smile away.

“… and you liked the Killens children. Well, they live around the corner.”

He nodded and spoke like an old man. “Lots of people are different when they’re visiting than when they’re at home. I’ll see if they’re the same in New York as they were in California.”

Youthful cynicism is sad to observe, because it indicates not so much knowledge learned from bitter experiences as insufficient trust even to attempt the future.

“Guy, you know I love you, and I try to be a good mother. I try to do the right thing, but I’m not perfect”—his silence agreed—“I hope you’ll remember whenever I’ve done something that hurts you that I do love you and it’s not my intention …”

He was studying my face, listening to the tone of my voice.

“Mom …” I relaxed a little. “Mother” was formal, cold, disapproving. “Mom” meant closeness, forgiveness.

“Mom, I know. I know you do the best you can. And I’m not really angry. It’s just that Los Angeles …”

“Did Ray do anything … mistreat you?”

“Oh no, Mom. He moved about a week after you left.”

“You mean you lived alone?”

Shock set my body into furious action. Every normal function accelerated. Tears surfaced and clouded my vision. Guy lost half his age and suddenly he again was a little boy of seven who slept with a butcher’s knife under his pillow one summer at camp. What did he slip under his pillow in Los Angeles while I partied safely in New York?

“My baby. Oh honey, why didn’t you tell me when I phoned? I would have come back.”

Now his was the soothing voice. “You were trying to find a job and a house. I wasn’t afraid.”

“But Guy, you’re only fourteen. Suppose something had happened to you?”

He stood silent and looked at me, evaluating my distress. Suddenly, he crossed the room and stopped beside my chair. “Mom, I’m a man. I can look after myself. Don’t worry. I’m young, but I’m a man.” He stood, bent and kissed me on the forehead. “I’m going to change the furniture around. I want my desk facing the window.” He walked down the hall.

The black mother perceives destruction at every door, ruination at each window, and even she herself is not beyond her own suspicion. She questions whether she loves her children enough—or more terribly, does she love them too much? Do her looks cause embarrassment—or even more terrifying, is she so attractive her sons begin to desire her and her daughters begin to hate her. If she is unmarried, the challenges are increased. Her singleness indicates she has rejected, or has been rejected by her mate. Yet she is raising children who will become mates. Beyond her door, all authority is in the hands of people who do not look or think or act like her and her children. Teachers, doctors, sales clerks, librarians, policemen, welfare workers are white and exert control over her family’s moods, conditions and personality; yet within the home, she must display a right to rule which at any moment, by a knock at the door, or a ring of the telephone can be exposed as false. In the face of these contradictions, she must provide a blanket of stability, which warms but does not suffocate, and she must tell her children the truth about the power of white power without suggesting that it cannot be challenged.

“Hey, Mom, come and see.”

Every piece of furniture was in a new place, and the room looked exactly the same.

“Like it? After dinner, I’ll play you a game of Scrabble. Where is the dictionary? What are we having for dinner? Does the television work? Gee, I’m famished.”

My son was home and we were a family again.

—

The Harlem Writers Guild was meeting at John’s house, and my palms were sweating and my tongue was thick. The loosely formed organization, without dues or membership cards, had one strict rule: any invited guest could sit in for three meetings, but thereafter, the visitor had to read from his or her work in progress. My time had come.

Sarah Wright and Sylvester Leeks stood in a corner talking softly. John Clarke was staring at titles in the bookcase. Mary Delany and Millie Jordan were giving their coats to Grace and exchanging greetings. The other writers were already seated around the living room in a semicircle.

John Killens walked past me, touching my shoulder, took his seat and called the meeting to order.

“O.K., everybody. Let’s start.” Chairs scraped the floor and the sounds reverberated in my armpits. “As you know, our newest member, our California singer, is going to read from her new play. What’s the title, Maya?”

“One Love. One Life.”
My usually deep voice leaked out high-pitched and weak.

A writer asked how many acts the play had. I answered again in the piping voice, “So far only one.”

Everyone laughed; they thought I was making a joke.

“If everyone is ready, we can begin.” John picked up his note pad. There was a loud rustling as the writers prepared to take notes.

I read the character and set description despite the sudden perversity of my body. The blood pounded in my ears but not enough to drown the skinny sound of my voice. My hands shook so that I had to lay the pages in my lap, but that was not a good solution due to the tricks my knees were playing. They lifted voluntarily, pulling my heels off the floor and then trembled like disturbed Jello. Before I launched into the play’s action, I looked around at the writers expecting but hoping not to see their amusement at my predicament. Their faces were studiously blank. Within a year, I was to learn that each had a horror story about a first reading at the Harlem Writers Guild.

Time wrapped itself around every word, slowing me. I couldn’t
force myself to read faster. The pages seemed to be multiplying even as I was trying to reduce them. The play was dull, the characters, unreal, and the dialogue was taken entirely off the back of a Campbell’s soup can. I knew this was my first and last time at the Guild. Even if I hadn’t the grace to withdraw voluntarily, I was certain the members had a method of separating the wheat from the chaff.

“The End.” At last.

The members laid their notes down beside their chairs and a few got up to use the toilets. No one spoke. Even as I read I knew the drama was bad, but maybe someone would have lied a little.

The room filled. Only the whispering of papers shifting told me that the jury was ready.

John Henrik Clarke, a taut little man from the South, cleared his throat. If he was to be the first critic, I knew I would receive the worst sentence. John Clarke was famous in the group for his keen intelligence and bitter wit. He had supposedly once told the FBI that they were wrong to think that he would sell out his home state of Georgia; he added that he would give it away, and if he found no takers he would even pay someone to take it.

“One Life. One Love?”
His voice was a rasp of disbelief. “I found no life and very little love in the play from the opening of the act to its unfortunate end.”

Using superhuman power, I kept my mouth closed and my eyes on my yellow pad.

He continued, his voice lifting. “In 1879, on a March evening, Alexander Graham Bell successfully completed his attempts to send the human voice through a little wire. The following morning some frustrated playwright, unwilling to build the necessary construction plot, began his play with a phone call.”

A general deprecating murmur floated in the air.

“Aw, John” and “Don’t be so mean” and “Ooo Johnnn, you ought to be ashamed.” Their moans were facetious, mere accompaniment to their relish.

Grace invited everyone to drinks, and the crowd rose and started milling around, while I stayed in my chair.

Grace called to me. “Come on, Maya. Have a drink. You need it.” I grinned and knew movement was out of the question.

Killens came over. “Good thing you stayed. You got some very important criticism.” He, too, could slide to hell straddling a knotted greasy rope. “Don’t just sit there. If they think you’re too sensitive, you won’t get such valuable criticism the next time you read.”

The next time? He wasn’t as bright as he looked. I would never see those snooty bastards as long as I stayed black and their asses pointed toward the ground. I put a nasty-sweet smile on my face and nodded.

“That’s right, Maya Angelou, show them you can take anything they can dish out. Let me tell you something.” He started to sit down beside me, but mercifully another writer called him away.

I measured the steps from my chair to the door. I could make it in ten strides.

“Maya, you’ve got a story to tell.”

I looked up into John Clarke’s solemn face.

“I think I can speak for the Harlem Writers Guild. We’re glad to have you. John Killens came back from California talking about your talent. Well, in this group we remind each other that talent is not enough. You’ve got to work. Write each sentence over and over again, until it seems you’ve used every combination possible, then write it again. Publishers don’t care much for white writers.” He coughed or laughed. “You can imagine what they think about black ones. Come on. Let’s get a drink.”

I got up and followed him without a first thought.

Ten different conversations were being held in the kitchen.

The writers were partying. Gone were the sober faces and serious eyes. As John Clarke and I entered, another writer spoke to me. “So, Maya, you lived through your baptism. Now you’re a member of the flock.” Sarah, a pretty little woman with fastidious manners, put her hand on my arm. “They were easy on you this evening, dear. Soft, you might say. Because it was your first reading. But you’ll see, next week you watch how they treat Sylvester.”

Paule Marshall, whose book
Brown Girl, Brown Stones
was going to be made into a television movie, smiled conspiratorially. “See, I told
you, it wasn’t too bad, was it?” They had stripped me, flayed me, utterly and completely undone me, and now they were as cheery as Christmas cards.

I sipped the cool wine and thought about the evening’s instruction. Because I had a fairly large vocabulary and had been reading constantly since childhood, I had taken words and the art of arranging them too lightly. The writers assaulted my casual approach and made me confront my intention. If I wanted to write, I had to be willing to develop a kind of concentration found mostly in people awaiting execution. I had to learn technique and surrender my ignorance.

John Killens interrupted my thoughts. “Maya, how long will it take you to rewrite that play?”