The Darkest Child (16 page)

twenty - four

M
en with trucks began to arrive three weeks before Plymouth School was to close its doors for the summer.Wallace was still home nursing his injured foot, and missed the noise of trees going down, the smell of deep earth coming up, the ground-breaking for our new school. It was an exciting time for everybody, but even more so for me. Jeff Stallings had asked me to the prom.

Having rehearsed what I would tell my mother, I entered the house that Thursday afternoon only to find the place deserted. I dropped my books in the front room and went out to the kitchen. Through the window I could see Wallace, Laura, and Edna.Wallace had wrapped his foot in a thin strip of checkered cloth, knotted at the toes. He had the front wheel of his bike propped on the bottom step with Laura and Edna holding it steady while he practiced pedaling.

“Where’s Martha Jean?” I called from the window.

“Who knows?”Wallace called back. “Somebody came in a car and got Mama.Two minutes later, Martha Jean was walking up the road wit’ Judy. Nobody said nothing to me.They just left me here wit’ these two. I ain’t staying home tomorrow.”

Turning from the window, I picked up my books, and went to sit on the front steps. It was quiet, an ideal time for studying, but I found myself studying the world around me instead of the books on my lap.

Mama had not purchased seeds to plant a garden in the yard as she had said she would, and I did not think anything would have grown anyway.The field would have made a larger garden, but who knew what might grow there, or who it belonged to? It was a place where towering weeds seemed to grow and die in the same breath.

My gaze shifted from the field to the road. I saw Tarabelle turn at the bend and stride briskly toward the house.Tucked under her arm was a bag of something that I assumed Mrs. Munford had given her. She mounted the steps, paused at the door, and removed several items from the bag before dropping a garment on top of my open book.

“Miss Arlisa’s expecting,” she said before entering the house, and I could not tell from her expression whether that was good news or bad.

I inspected the garment she had given me. It was a straight-cut, long-sleeved, brown gabardine dress with a pink vest. It would need some alterations, but I thought it would make a nice Sunday dress, and I needed one.

A car stopped in front of our house and my mother stepped out. “Y’all come back in ’bout a hour,” she said.“We’ll be ready.” She glanced up and saw me sitting on the step. “Tarabelle home yet?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Today she was the beautiful, happy mother whom I feared so very much. Her hair was loose and flowing. She wore a yellow dress with a full skirt. Her legs were bare, and on her feet were a pair of flat, white shoes that I had never seen before. She came up the steps, lightly brushed my cheek, and smiled down at me.

“That was Crow,” she said, as though I should know who Crow was. “He done come back from New York. Got a pocket full of money. I’m gon’ get some of that money for you, baby. Don’t you worry ’bout a thing.”

She entered the house and immediately began to shout orders at Tarabelle, excitedly. “Get yo’self together, girl. Put on the best dress you got, and tell the dummy to fetch me some bathwater.”

I placed my new dress on top of my books and rose to prepare my mother’s bath, formulating a lie to tell in Martha Jean’s defense if it should become necessary. I carried the tub into Mama’s room and found her sitting on the bed checking her stockings for runs. “I ain’t got a decent pair of stockings,” she said. “I’ll buy me two pair tomorrow. I bet Crow would buy me fifty pair if I ask him.”

She reminded me of a spoiled child, not knowing whether to throw a tantrum because of the stockings or jump for joy because of this Crow. I waited until it seemed that joy was winning out, then I spoke.“Your water is warming, Mama,” I said.“Do you want me to help you check your stockings?”

She passed half the bundle over to me, and I took a seat beside her on the bed. I stretched a stocking, stuck my arm inside, and turned it to check for snags. Mama tapped a foot against the floor as she concentrated on her task. She was in a good mood—a really good mood.

“Mama, Jeff Stallings invited me to the prom,” I said quickly. “Can I go?”

“Jeff Stallings? Ain’t that John Henry Stallings’ boy? Why he ask you?”

I shrugged.“He just did.”

“What you doing, Tangy Mae, the reason that boy ask you? Them people got money.They don’t even half speak to people like you.”

“He thinks I’m pretty, Mama.”

“Nah. That boy ain’t said nothing like that. Is he blind?” She removed a stocking from her outstretched arm.“Here’s a good one. Don’t mix it back wit’ the others.”

I took the stocking, placed it on her pillow, and waited.

“That boy up to something,” she said after a moment of silence. “I don’t know what it is, but he up to something. He’ll probably be driving that nice car they got.And you mean to tell me he gon’ come out here and pick up some skinny, little black girl when he can take anybody he wants? Why ain’t he taking one of them Brandon girls?”

“He asked me, Mama.”

“Well, if he asked you, then you go.You go and have a good time. And you make sho’ that boy bring you home when the dancing over. Don’t play ’round wit’ him, Tangy Mae.You ain’t the kinda girl he gon’ have much time for later. Boys’ll play ’round wit’ girls like you, but they’ll marry one of them Brandon girls.You mark my word.”

She got down on her knees, reached beneath the bed, and withdrew a box. From it, she pulled three white brassieres, and placed them side by side on the mattress.

“Here,” she said. “If you going out wit’ John Henry Stallings’ boy, I want you to look decent.Take whichever one you want.”

I studied the brassieres, and could see no difference in color, shape, or size.They were all white, cotton, and too small for me. I chose the one from the middle.

“Thank you,” I said, and was moved nearly to tears. I pressed the brassiere to my nose and sniffed the faint scent of lilac.

Mama watched me. She stood up, held my head between her palms, and kissed my hair.“Tangy, baby,” she said tenderly, “it’s just a ol’ brassiere.Ain’t nothing but a ol’ brassiere.Don’t cry ’bout it, baby.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, as the tears spilled from my eyes.

I left the room, and returned shortly with her bathwater. I poured the water into the tub while she hummed a tune and laid her clothes out on the bed.

Time seemed to stand still. I kept waiting for Mama to detect Martha Jean’s absence, but she never did. When the car returned, she rushed Tarabelle out and followed behind her, glowing with happiness.

I
was already awake when Tarabelle tapped the back of my head with the toe of her shoe.

“Stop,” I mumbled irritably.

“Well, get up then,” she said.“Mama want you to come outside.

There’s a big, black ape out there wanna have a look at you.”

I crawled up from the floor and stumbled about in moonlight, looking for something to put on.

“Here, ”Tarabelle said, then slipped out of her dress and gave it to me.

Outside, Mama was leaning against a car, talking to someone who was seated inside. I walked slowly down the embankment to the road wondering what was so important that she needed to drag me out of the house at this hour.

“Here she is, Crow,” Mama said as I approached the car.“Come stand right here, Tangy Mae.” She positioned me in front of the car where I was illuminated by the glare of headlights.

A man stepped from the car. He was as dark as midnight, with large, white teeth that chewed on a matchstick. He was tall—very tall, and muscular.He wore a light brown suit and a brown fedora.

“Damn, Rozelle,” he said.“We got us a queen here. A sho’ nuff queen.”

“You like her, Crow?” Mama asked, beaming with pride.

“If I hadda knowed we could do this,” he said, “we coulda stayed together and made a dozen little Crow queens.” He stepped closer, towering over me, and brought a hand down to the top of my head.“Lord, if she ain’t got my mama’s hair.”

“I told you so,” Mama said. “Didn’t I tell you?” She’d had too much to drink. She slurred her words, and rocked unsteadily on the dirt road.

“Look here, Rozelle,” Crow said, reaching into his pocket and extracting a billfold, “you go on in the house now. I wanna talk to this gal.We got sixteen years to catch up on.”

“Tangy Mae ain’t sixteen, yet,” Mama said, accepting the bills that Crow offered her.“Don’t you keep her out here too long.”

“I know she ain’t sixteen,” Crow responded, staring at me. “We gon’ catch up on time ’fo’ she got here. I just might tell her a little something ’bout you. How you like that?”

He winked, and Mama tried to wink back, but failed to manage more than a dull blink of both eyes. She stumbled up the embankment, and Crow watched until she was safely on the porch, then he turned his attention back to me and walked me around to a door of the car.As he opened the door for me, Mama yelled down from the porch, “You coming back tomorrow, Crow?”

“Not tomorrow,” he answered.“I gotta run up to Knoxville, see my mama. Maybe Sat’day, Rozelle.Maybe I’ll see you Sat’day.”

There was a man asleep on the back seat of the car. He snored in the ragged rhythm of drunkenness, and I tried to see who he was, but could not because of the way his arm was draped over his face.

“That’s Melvin, ”Crow said, sliding in behind the steering wheel and turning his key in the ignition.“Dorothy probably gon’ hit him upside his head wit’ something, but that ain’t my worry.”

“What do you want to talk to me about?” I asked, as the car rolled up Fife Street.

“Don’t tell Rozelle, but I thought you was sixteen,” he said. “It ain’t that you look it or nothing. It’s just that I get mixed up wit’ the years sometimes.They roll by so fast.”

He produced another match from his coat pocket, tossed the old one out the window, and placed the fresh one between his teeth. “Yo’ mama is really something,” he said after a lengthy silence. “I been knowing her for years. I asked her to marry me once, but she wouldn’t do it.You know what she tol’ me? She said, ‘Crow, I can’t marry no man dark as you. I just can’t do it.’ That’s all the reason she ever gave.” He chuckled, dry and throaty. “She kinda stuck on that color thang, you know? I was willing to take them babies she had and give ’em a home, but all yo’ mama could see was color. She ain’t changed a bit, neither. She’d go out wit’ me, help me spend my money, have a little fun, but that was all. She didn’t want nobody to see her wit’ me. She still don’t.”

“What about him?” I asked, motioning toward the back seat.

“Aw, shoot. Melvin Tate? He ain’t nobody.”

We reached Market Street where there was not another car in sight. It was strange seeing the town at this early hour of the morning. There was a light on inside the train depot, and crates were lined along the platform, but there seemed to be no one in attendance. I glanced back at the depot as the car thumped across the tracks and turned left in the direction of the flats.

On the back seat, Melvin Tate stirred and pulled himself into a sitting position. He leaned forward across the front seat, placing his head between mine and Crow’s. “Hey, Crow. Man, pull over,” he said. “Let me outta this damn car ’less you want a wet seat.”

Crow swore but stopped the car, and Melvin stumbled out and staggered around to the rear.

“See,” Crow said, “I told you he wadn’t nobody.”

I knew Melvin Tate, and Crow was right.

“How many babies yo’ mama got now?” Crow asked, glancing about impatiently and turning on his seat to check on Melvin.

“Ten.”

“Goddamn, Rozelle been busy. She wouldn’t tell me when I asked her. Said it wadn’t none of my business since they didn’t belong to me. I had to remind her that she had one belonged to me.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “You know what? I oughta leave that nigger out there, but I don’t want it to be my fault if he goes to jail.”

Melvin returned and managed, with great difficulty, to settle his lanky frame on the back seat. The strong odor of urine followed him inside, and I rolled my window down for fresh air.

Crow turned on his seat and stared at Melvin. “Man, get outta my car,” he demanded.“You smell like a damn outhouse. Get out!”

“Come on, man,” Melvin pleaded.

“Come on, hell. Get out my car, Melvin. If you wadn’t so drunk, you could see yo’ house from here. Get out!”

Reluctantly, Melvin crawled from the back seat, and Crow pulled away, leaving him staring after us. Crow turned onto Motten Street and stopped the car.

“I gotta make sho’ he gets home,” Crow said.“That’s his house right up the street there.”

I glanced up the street at the row of darkened houses which were identical in structure. A few had enclosed porches, but they all had four wooden steps that practically kissed the sidewalk, and saddle lawns that were mostly well kept. I knew where the Tates lived. I knew who lived in every house on Motten Street, including Skeeter’s. Somewhere in the darkness of Skeeter’s house was Velman Cooper, a man who was courting my sister and my mother.

“Do you know Skeeter Richards?” I asked Crow.

“I know just about everybody in this town,” he answered. “I used to live here.That was years ago.”

“I’ve never heard of you.”

“What?” he asked with genuine astonishment. “Rozelle never tol’ you nothing ’bout me. Never tol’ you how I used to sit for hours just holding you and looking down at yo’ face. It’s been some years, but y’all oughta remember me. Who yo’ mama got you thinking yo’ daddy is?”

I did not answer. I could not tell him about my mother and her secrets because I could not explain something I did not understand.

Melvin Tate saved me from further interrogation as he staggered around the corner and up to the car, swearing every step of the way.

“I’m through wit’ you, Crow,” he yelled. “You lowdown dirty mothafucka.” He pounded his fists against the trunk of the car and kicked a rear tire before falling to the ground.

Crow laughed, then started the car and pulled away from the curb. On the drive back to Penyon Road, he asked again if my mother had ever told me who my daddy was.