The Darkest Child (13 page)

nineteen

M
artha Jean’s face was a horrid rainbow of black lumps and blue bruises encircled by thin rings of lime-green and yellow discolorations. She peered at me from beneath the swollen, black lid of her right eye. Her left eye was closed, puffy, and draining a clear fluid down her cheek. Her upper lip, swollen like a mushroom, blocked the flow of air through her nose and made her breathing sound like snoring.

It pained me to look at her. I think it hurt us all, but each of us expressed our distress in a different way. Harvey paced, and Sam was silent.After they left for work, Wallace mumbled, and Tarabelle said, “Ain’t nobody gon’ be calling Martha Jean pretty for a long time.”

“I’m gonna stay home again today and look after her,” I said. “She can’t take care of Judy.”

“Judy is Mama’s baby.”Tarabelle said in measured syllables, as if explaining something to a small child.“Martha Jean shouldn’t have to take care of her. Mama ain’t doing nothing all day ’cept laying up on her ass.”

“Will you take her coffee in before you leave?” I asked.

“Nope. I’m late,” Tarabelle answered, “and if I can make it through the rest of my life without seeing Mama, I’ll be a happy child.” She reached the doorway of the front room, then turned and whispered, “Tan, write Mushy a letter and tell her I’m waiting.”

She left, and Wallace gave her some distance before he struck out for school. I took coffee in to Mama, then I fed and changed Judy, got Laura and Edna dressed and fed, and managed to get a few spoonsful of food between Martha Jean’s swollen lips.

Martha Jean had remained curled on her pallet all the day before. She hadn’t eaten, hadn’t even made a trip to the outhouse. Today, at least, she was sitting up
,
and I noticed that her gown was wet. I cleaned her up as best I could, then helped her walk over to one of the armchairs.

Mama emerged from her room around noon and got her first glance at Martha Jean’s face since the beating
.
She ambled on toward the kitchen, and did not speak to us. Laura sat quietly on the floor beside Martha Jean’s chair. I winked at her, and she smiled timidly, as if afraid her smile might attract Mama’s notice. I held Judy on my lap, and imagined my mother leaning against the kitchen wall, weeping bitterly for the pain she had inflicted, and promising herself and God that it would never happen again.

Mama had always taught us that we were not to hit each other, and I wondered why she was exempt from that rule. Sometimes I believed she did not mean to hurt us, but could not help herself. She was, after all, the same gentle woman who had once, long ago, taught us to love, and I had learned to love with every part of my being. My love for Martha Jean alone filled my heart to aching.

I was baffled by the ambiguities of my mother’s emotions and behavior
.
She denied and feared God in the same breath. She allowed our actions to shame her, and yet she was void of shame. I truly believed there was something unnatural about her—a madness that only her children could see. My yearning was not to understand it, but to escape it.

“Tan,” came her soft voice from the kitchen. “Tan, baby, come here a minute. I need you to do something for me.”

With Judy cradled in my arms, I went out to the kitchen. Mama was sitting on a chair, her feet tucked beneath the seat, and an elbow resting on the tabletop. A foul odor—the combination of sweat, caffeine, and booze—emanated from her body and scalp. She reached out to touch me, but recoiled when she saw that I was holding the baby.

“What happened to the dummy?” she asked. “What happened to her? Did she fall down the steps or something?”

I accepted my cue.“Yes, ma’am,” I lied.“She fell down the front steps.”

“Did you see it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Who else saw it?” “We all saw it. I tried to break her fall, but I couldn’t. Harvey went down and picked her up and brought her in the house.We all saw her fall, Mama, but there was nothing we could do.”

Mama nodded.“Okay. I ain’t blaming you.Y’all just gon’ have to be more careful on them steps.”

“Is that all, Mama?” I asked.

“Nah, baby. I need you to get them outta here.Take ’em for a walk out toward the country or something.You can do that for Mama, can’t you?” She closed her eyes and rubbed her head.“That damn Mr. Poppy coming for his rent today. I ain’t got it. I’m gon’ have to explain that to ’im, and I can’t do it wit’ all y’all sitting ’round.” She fell silent, and after a long while she said, “I’m gon’ tell him to fix them steps, Tan.”

Nearly an hour passed before we were on the road. It had taken most of that time to wash dried blood from Martha Jean’s face and hair. She hadn’t wanted to move, and I couldn’t blame her.We started out toward the country, but as soon as we were out of Mama’s view, we cut through the grove of trees behind the field and took a detour toward town.

T
he push broom dropped to the floor with a hollow thump. Velman, his eyes as wide as I had ever seen them, stepped cautiously toward us. He brought a hand up to touch Martha Jean’s face, then slowly lowered it to his side.His lips moved, but formed no words.

“I told you not to come to our house,” I screamed at him.“I told you the first time you saw us that we were Quinns, but you were so busy listening to your own voice that you didn’t hear me.Now look what you’ve done.”

“Hey, what’s going on out there?” Charlie Nesbitt asked.

He and Chadlow had come from a back area of the post office and were standing at the counter watching us. Chadlow was tall and brawny, and he loomed about six inches over Charlie Nesbitt. He had dark, wavy hair that was thinning at the top, and dark eyes that always seemed cold and contemptuous. I had seen him sneer and scowl, but I had never seen a true smile grace his rugged features. To the Negroes in Pakersfield, he was an ugly, ugly man.

Judy was heavier than a load of fire logs in my arms. I cradled her in one aching arm, and turned Martha Jean to face Mr. Nesbitt and Chadlow.

“Look what he did to my sister,” I said in a voice trembling with threatening sobs.

Charlie Nesbitt studied Martha Jean’s face, then nodded his round, bald head in Velman’s direction and said, “I reckon this boy knows how to handle his own affairs. Seems to me this here’s a private matter. Don’t need no meddling from me or nobody else, gal.”

Staring down at the counter, I mumbled, “She’s my sister.”

“What’s that?” Charlie asked in a tone intended to humble me.

“She’s my sister, sir,” I repeated in my most timid voice.

“Don’t matter who she is. All I’m saying is you people got to take it someplace else. I can’t have you carrying on in my post office.You hear me, Velman? Get ’em outta here!”

“Yes, sir, ”Velman answered. He lifted the broom from the floor and placed it against a wall, then came to stand beside me.“Come on, little sister,” he pleaded.“I know you mad, and it look like you got every right to be, but not in here. Okay?”

We followed him outside and down the walk until we reached his car.All the while, I was thinking how best to cause him as much pain as I felt each time I looked at Martha Jean’s face.

“You!” I began, all fired up, but then Edna tugged at my skirt with an urgency that nearly snapped the button at my waist.

“I’m tired, Tangy,” she whined.“I gotta number one.”

“Me, too. And I’m hungry,” Laura chimed in.

I glanced down at the heads of my sisters, feeling that they were conspiring against me for having dragged them so far from home. Edna had tucked her dress between her thighs and was dancing about shamelessly. The closest public facility for coloreds was at least a mile back through town at the bus depot, and by the looks of Edna, I did not think we would make it that far.

Velman, witnessing my dilemma, opened the car door and rolled a window down. He took Judy from my arms and placed her on the front seat.

“Take ’em to the side of the building,” he said. “Just keep away from the windows, and don’t go near the back. Mr. Nesbitt got some of his buddies up in there.They be opening people’s mail and reading it. He don’t think I know, but I done seen ’em do it plenty of times.”

“Isn’t that against the law?” I whispered.

“Must not be in this town, ”Velman said.“He got the law up in there wit’ him.”

“Chadlow is not the law,” I said, as Edna tugged at my skirt again.

I left Martha Jean standing beside the car, swaying from exhaustion, and God only knew what else. I took Laura and Edna to squat beside the building, all the while expecting Charlie Nesbitt or one of his buddies to come out and shoo us away.

When we returned to the front, Velman was staring at Martha Jean’s face with the oddest expression on his own, as if trying to understand the motivation behind such an act of violence. He raised a hand—unsteady and unsure. Gently, he touched her shoulder, and when she did not protest, he embraced her, and the wretched sob that escaped him echoed my own anguish.

When he finally released her and turned back to the post office, he did not ask us to wait. He did not need to.There was no place else for us to go, except home.We waited in his car for nearly two hours, during which time Chadlow and two other men came out of the post office. Chadlow stopped and stared out toward the car, and I thought he was going to come and bother us, but he didn’t. He caught up to the other two men, and they all got into Chadlow’s car and drove away.

When Velman finally appeared, he slid onto the driver’s seat, and without a word, drove west through town.

“Where are you going?” I asked nervously, afraid his rage had made him stupid, afraid he was going to Penyon Road to confront my mother.

“Don’t worry, little sister,” he said, glancing over at me. “I ain’t known for making the same mistake twice.You won’t see me back at yo’ place unless I’m invited, and I don’t guess that’s likely to happen. What I’m gon’ do is get Martha Jean outta there.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head.“I need time to think.”

He stopped the car on Canyon Street, just a little ways up from Logan’s store.We got out, and he held Martha Jean for a moment, rocking her against his body.

“We have to go,” I said, glancing around to make sure no one saw this man embracing my sister on the side of the road in broad daylight.

“Yeah,” he said, slowly releasing Martha Jean, and surreptitiously surveying the whole of Canyon Street. He got back inside the car, started to speak, then shook his head and drove off.

My anger had dissolved; I felt cheated and confused. I ached for the comfort that Velman had offered Martha Jean. She was visibly bruised;my wounds were deeply buried in my soul. No one knew about them. I truly believed Velman would try to help Martha Jean escape our mother’s house, but escape was what I desired for myself, as well. I wanted him to love her, but I realized that I wanted him to love me, too.

twenty

O
n a bright Saturday morning in April, we stripped the newspapers from the windows and allowed the first golden rays of sunlight to enter our dingy dwelling.We bared our arms, legs, and feet, and dug into our chores with enthusiasm. Both the house and the yard bustled with activity. Hambone, Junior, Max, and Skip had come to help Sam and Harvey patch the roof. Mattie had shown up unexpectedly, and Mama had allowed her to stay with the stipulation that she pitch in and help. Mama was enjoying herself, sitting on the front porch, sipping early morning beer, and chatting with Miss Pearl.

Their laughter drifted into the front room where I was busy sweeping and scooping ash into a paper bag. My mother’s laughter was music, like chimes in the wind, floating over the motley paradise that Pakersfield had become in spring. I used the broom to sweep my way closer to that sound, and to the sight, across the field on Fife Street, of rosy pink blossoms shimmering on dogwood trees.

My brothers and their friends, sliding sheets of tin across the roof, shook clumps of dirt onto the floorboards, and I gave up trying to clean the floor. I stood in the shadows of the hallway, basking in a warm breeze and my mother’s melody—until the squeals of Edna and Laura, romping through the yard, soured her notes.

“Look at ’em, Pearl. I can’t trust none of ’em. I don’t know when they lying or telling the truth.And I think they stealing from me.”

Miss Pearl chuckled.“Rosie, the one thang you ain’t gotta worry ’bout is them young’uns of yours.They some good chilluns.”

“They was before Mushy came and started turning ’em against me.”

“Mushy can’t turn ’em against you.You gon’ do that all by yo’self. I ain’t much on the Bible, but I’m almost sho’ it’s a sin the way you beat yo’ chilluns. Just look at Martha Jean’s face. Ain’t no need in y’all telling me she fell down no steps neither. You done that, Rosie, just as sho’ as I’m sitting here.”

“I didn’t, Pearl,” Mama lied.“Ask any of ’em, they’ll tell you she fell down these here steps.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s Mushy done put ideas in they heads. She trying to steal ’em from me. I can’t trust Tangy Mae no mo’.Ain’t no telling what she be putting in them letters.That’s why I went to the post office myself.And guess what? I found out a whole lotta stuff.They got a colored man working at that post office, and ever time he see me, he try to be all nice. He trying to take po’ dumb Martha Jean off my hands.” Mama chuckled. “And here’s another thing, Pearl. Mushy done sent a bus ticket to Tarabelle, trying to get her to run off.Wait a minute, and I’ll show you the ticket.”

She must have been rising as she spoke because I never had a chance to move out of the hall. I saw one bare, slender leg cross the threshold, then the other. I turned toward the front room, and felt a touch on my head. My head snapped back, and all I could do was follow my head toward the floor, then I was in motion, being dragged by my hair. I blinked and found myself sprawled on the splintered boards of the porch, a toppled mayonnaise jar beside me, cold beer soaking my faded, blue shorts, and Miss Pearl staring down at me.

“You see, Pearl,” Mama said. “You see now what I’m talking ’bout.They spy on me, too.”

Miss Pearl shook her head and grunted, “Uh, uh, uh. Rosie, you need to buy yo’ gals some brassieres.”

Above my head tin scraped against tin. I turned my head toward the steps and saw Mattie standing on the ground, looking up, witnessing my humiliation.

“Nah, Pearl,” Mama said.“Tangy Mae need to get herself a job. If she grown enough to wear a brassiere, then she grown enough to work. I ain’t wasting my money on no foolishness.”

With that said, she stepped over my outstretched legs and disappeared into the hallway.

“If I was you, I’d get out there in that yard somewhere,” Miss Pearl said, and winked at me.

“You almost got it, didn’t you?” Mattie asked, as I cleared the steps.“What’d you do?”

I gave her a “mind your own business” smirk, and kept walking.

Tarabelle was standing beside the washtub with her hands pressed against her lower back. Her fingers were wrinkled from being too long immersed in water. “You done in the house?” she asked.

I nodded.“For now.”

“Good. I’m gon’ take me a short walk, get this knot out my back.”

“Can I walk wit’ ya?” Mattie asked.

They walked west on Penyon Road and disappeared past the field and a thicket of trees. I bent over the tub and began to scrub a pair of overalls.Tarabelle had already completed the bulk of the wash—sheets and blankets—and they were hanging on the lines. I tossed the overalls into the rinse water, and glanced up at the roof. Hambone stood at the top of a ladder looking down at me.When our eyes met, he dropped his hammer to the ground and stepped backwards down the rungs to retrieve it.

“How are you this morning, Tangy?” he asked.

“Okay,” I mumbled, turning back to the wash.

He came over to stand beside me, purposely pressing his sweaty arm against mine.“You ever heard of a washing machine?” he asked. “You shouldn’t have to wash clothes with those pretty little hands.”

I stepped away from his sweaty arm and glared at him. “You stink,” I said.

A broad grin spread across his face, and he glanced down at my beer-soaked shorts, then he brought his face close to mine.“I don’t stink,” he said with a short laugh. “What you’re smelling is a real man. One-hundred-percent pure man.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” I shot back.

“I’ll tell you what, Miss Tangy, you give me a chance and I bet I can make you like it. I know I like what I see.”

“You’d better go on now before I call my brothers,” I threatened.

“Harvey and Sam?” He glanced toward the roof. “They don’t worry about me. They know I’m all right.You know, I’ve been thinking about taking you out. Maybe to the picture show or up to Stillwaters. I’ll even buy you a dress.What color do you want?”

“I don’t want a dress,” I snapped, “and you know I’m not allowed at Stillwaters.”

“That didn’t stop you the last time, and as I recall, you had a good time.Why don’t you think about it.”

My refusal came out as an insult.“You stink,” I repeated.

Hambone peeled off the offending T-shirt and tossed it into the wash tub.“How do you expect me to smell when I’ve been hauling tin all morning?” he asked. “I’m not gonna smell like a rose, Tangy. It’s nothing a little soap and water won’t take care of.”

“Oh, my God!” I whispered, glancing around.“Put your clothes back on.”

“Hey, calm down,” he said, rubbing a hand slowly across the patch of hair on his chest. “I’ll tell you what.You give me a drink of cold water, and I’ll get on back to work.”

“The faucet’s over there,” I said, pointing it out to him.

“What? You want me to drink outta my hands? I can’t get a glass and a little chunk of ice? I’m working on your roof, and I can’t get a glass?”

“All right,” I answered with deliberate irritation.“Then will you leave me alone?”

He shrugged his bare shoulders.“Like I said, I’ll get on back to work.”

He followed me around to the rear of the house where Martha Jean was sitting on a step, dangling a red ribbon over Judy’s basket. Hambone paused to admire Judy, and I rushed on off to the kitchen.

Moving as fast as I could, I chopped off two chunks of ice, dropped them into the first jar I saw, and replaced the ice pick in the windowsill. Before I could turn around, though, he was on me. His chest pressed against my back, pushing me against the ice box door, as his tongue made wet circles up and down my neck. His hands squeezed between me and the door, pinching and pawing at my breasts. I held myself as rigid as possible, afraid to scream, afraid my mother would catch me shaming her under her own roof.

Sunlight spilled in through the kitchen window as if God had captured us in a spotlight. I felt embarrassed and as cold as the block of ice beyond the door that kept me from falling. I could hear my mother outside, and I held my breath, thinking she was coming in. She would find me like this, and beat the living tar out of me, then God would send me to Hell, and Satan would burn me up.

“Wallace, where’d you get that thang?”my mother shouted. She was still on the front porch.

“I stole it from some white boys, Mama, ”Wallace answered. His voice was coming from the yard.

“Did anybody see you?”

“No, ma’am. It was in the alley behind the drugstore. It’s new, Mama.You like it?”

Mama and Miss Pearl laughed, then all sound seemed to fade, except for Hambone’s panting in my ear.

“Come on, Tangy. Help me out,” he said between breaths.

Suddenly, there was a loud noise, and all of his weight fell on me.

“Shit!” he cried out. “Shit!”

He stepped back, and I was free. I turned slowly to see Hambone and Tarabelle facing each other.Hambone had one arm raised between his shoulder blades, rubbing his back.

“Why’d you hit me, Tarabelle?” he asked angrily. “You almost broke my damn back.”

Tarabelle dropped the milk crate she had used on him, and took a seat at the table.“That’s my sister, boy,” she said matter-of-factly. There was neither surprise nor anger in her voice. She spoke as if she had walked in to find me stirring grits at the stove, or something else just as mundane.

“You hit me with that crate,” Hambone accused.

Tarabelle ignored him.“Tan, we ain’t gon’ have no blackberries this year,” she said. “Somebody done dug up that hill out by the dairy. Ain’t nothing now but dirt and holes.”

The jar with the two melting chunks of ice stood atop the ice box. I picked it up and gave it to Hambone, then I began to run.

Mattie, Judy, and Edna were on the steps, blocking my path. I leapt from the side of the porch and rushed for the woods, nearly slamming into Martha Jean as she emerged from the outhouse.

I could hear Wallace calling after me, “Tangy, look at my new bike.” But I could not stop.

Mattie caught up to me only when there was no path left to travel. I fell to my knees at Mr. Barnwell’s fence, and Mattie dropped down beside me.

“What happened?” she asked.“What’s wrong wit’ you?”

I blurted out the embarrassing details of my experience with Hambone, honestly believing that if I shared it I would feel better. I even told her how I had been afraid to call out for my mother.

Mattie listened, staring down at the ground, and occasionally shaking her head. When I was done, she said, “I told you a long time ago.They can smell the scent when we women.You just lucky nobody ain’t came after you sooner than this.They be looking for somewhere to stick they tails.Yo’ brothers do it, too.All men do the nasty. They sniff out girls that’s done had the curse, then they go after ’em, saying how they gon’ make ’em feel good. Saying how they pretty.Telling all sorts of lies ’til they get they tails in her.”

“Hambone didn’t put anything in me,” I said.“I’m never gonna let anybody do that to me.”

Mattie laughed. “Then what you worried ’bout? You still a virgin, but he woulda done it if yo’ sister hadn’t stopped him.You couldn’t stop him. Least that’s what you said, but maybe you wanted him to do it.”

“I didn’t, Mattie. He didn’t even ask. He just grabbed me and started touching all over me.”

“They don’t have to ask, stupid.They men.They can do what they want.They all like that.”

“I don’t believe you, Mattie,” I said.“They can’t all be like that.”

“You name me one that ain’t.”

“Wallace.”

“He just a baby.”

“Jeff.”

“Jeff Stallings is a sissy,” she said.“They different.”

“What about Mr. Pace?” I asked.

“He like that, too,” she answered. “He just gotta be sly about it ’cause he a teacher.” She picked up a twig, snapped it into pieces, and began placing the pieces on the ground.“Yo’ sister,” she said, “the dumb one, she know anything ’bout the curse?”

I nodded.

“How y’all make her understand things?”

“Martha Jean’s not dumb, Mattie,” I said. “She can read better than you.”

“How you know? You ever heard her read?”

“No. But she understands what she reads.That’s more than I can say about you.”

“You ain’t gotta get smart about it!” she snapped.

“I’m not getting smart,” I apologized. “I just don’t like it when people call Martha Jean dumb.”

“Yo’ other sister, Tarabelle, she’s pretty,” Mattie said. “I like her.

She’s nice.”

“You won’t think she’s so nice if she hears you calling Martha Jean names.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Mattie stood and scattered the twigs with her foot. “You’re being mean,” she said.“I’m going back.You think yo’ brother’ll let me ride his bike?”

I shrugged.“I don’t know. He’s never had a bicycle before.”

She started back along the trail, walking slow at first, then breaking into a trot. I watched her go, and almost before she was out of sight, I saw Junior coming along the trail toward me. I shook my head in disbelief when I saw that he was carrying his satchel. I wondered how much help he had been up on the roof with a bag attached to his body.

He dropped down beside me, looked me in my eyes, and said, “I was standing on the roof when I saw you charge out through here like you were being chased by bloodhounds. Did Hambone bother you?”

I shook my head. “If I told you yes, would you tell Sam?”

He smiled.“No. If there’s something about you that Sam needs to know, you’ll have to be the one to tell him. Hambone and I are not the best of friends, but Sam likes him.”

I nodded.“I don’t know whether I like him or not. I don’t know him that well, but I don’t guess I need to tell my brothers anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I answered.

“Tangy, you’re no longer a child.You’ve grown into a young lady. Rules of the game change as we get older. Sometimes the games aren’t fun anymore. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“You talk in riddles sometimes, Junior, but I think I know what you mean. I listened to that meeting in our backyard a couple of months ago. I thought you were gonna lose everybody with your fancy words.”

“Had I begun to speak of Utopia, surely I would have lost them all,” he joked, and then his face grew serious. “I’m glad you listened, Tangy. I hope you heard every word that was said. I know you’re hungry—so hungry that you will die of starvation if you stay in Pakersfield. I’ve watched you on the few occasions when I’ve taught your class.You devour knowledge like a buzzard on a corpse. Forgive the analogy, but that’s what I see. There’re not enough books on the shelves of all the schools and libraries in this county to fed your hunger.You need more, and you’ll never find it here.”