The Darkest Child (17 page)
Authors: Delores Phillips
“She never did,” I answered, “but the minute I saw you, I knew it was you.”
“That’s right. It’s me.”
He parked in front of our house and pressed two bills against my palm.“Here,” he said.“Buy yo’self something pretty. Something fit for a queen.”
He waited until I was on the porch, then drove off. Under moonlight I looked at the bills in my hand, a five and a twenty. It was more money than I had ever seen in one place at one time in my entire life.
In the front room I knelt on hands and knees, and groped around in darkness for my science book. I hid the money between the last page and the back cover, then crawled over to my pallet.
Tarabelle’s voice startled me.“That big ape do you?” she asked.
“Do what? That big ape is my daddy,” I said, then I stretched out and tumbled into sleep, spending my riches as I went.
M
ama was euphoric in anticipation of Crow’s next visit. She was sitting at the kitchen table, sucking on a Pall Mall, getting much better at it. Like the rising sun, she set the mood for the day—light and breezy without a storm cloud in sight. She made a grand production of presenting Wallace with five dollars to buy a pair of shoes. She promised Laura and Edna a trip to Logan’s store, and she clapped her hands delightedly when Tarabelle told her that Miss Arlisa was expecting a baby.
“Ain’t that funny,” she beamed.“Me, too.”
Tarabelle glanced at me, and I shrugged my shoulders.
“Mama,” Sam said, “I thought you said you couldn’t have no mo’. Didn’t you tell Mushy you couldn’t have no mo’?”
“You see, that’s just it, Sam,” she said. “That’s why I ain’t never put no stock in no doctor. Half the time they don’t know what they talking ’bout.”
“Well . . .” Sam said, and we waited for him to complete his sentence, but nothing more followed. He was at a loss for words, and so was I.
“I think I’m gon’ have me a boy,” Mama informed us. “Wit’ Harvey gone, we need another boy ’round here.” She talked on and on, her lips moving through clouds of cigarette smoke, while we sent messages to each other with our eyes.
Tarabelle went to stand behind our mother’s chair. She signed to Martha Jean, “Mama. Baby.” She cradled her arms, then jabbed her abdomen twice with a finger. Martha Jean glanced down at Judy, then she stared back quizzically at Tarabelle.Tarabelle jabbed her abdomen again, and understanding registered in Martha Jean’s eyes. For a moment, she regarded our mother with somber curiosity, then she rose from the table and left the kitchen with Judy clutched tightly against her chest.
Mama laughed—such a pleasant sound. She challenged Laura and Edna to come up with a name for the baby.“Two candy bars for the one who come up wit’ the best name,” she said, and Laura and Edna began to toss out names for Mama’s approval. When Mama finally decided on the name, Timothy, she made good on her promise, and took the girls to Logan’s store for candy.
“I don’t like Mama when she happy like that, ”Wallace said as soon as our mother was gone.
“I don’t like her, period,” Tarabelle remarked. “How she gon’ have another baby for Martha Jean to take care of? It ain’t fair.”
“I coulda swo’ she said she couldn’t have no mo’,” Sam commented.
“She can’t. I just know she can’t,” I said, but I wasn’t really certain. Anything was possible.
I went outside to take clothes from the line.Thoughts of going to the prom with Jeff Stallings began to overshadow thoughts of my mother. There was nothing I could do about Mama having another baby, or even ten more babies, but there was something I could do about the prom. I’d have to buy a dress, and I was looking forward to that. Maybe, after school on Monday, Mattie would go into town with me to shop.
The clothes were inside and folded by the time Mama returned from the store with two very happy little girls, a pair of stockings, and a bag of two-for-a-penny candy. In an atmosphere of serenity, I filled my mouth with sweets and listened to my mother sing as she made herself ready for her date with Crow.
As the hours passed with no sign of Crow, Mama began to make excuses for his delay, saying that maybe he’d had a flat tire or was just running late. She spent the evening watching the road for his car, then she began to berate him, saying he was nothing and nobody, and she didn’t care if he came or not. Finally, seated on a chair on the front porch, she spread her slender legs before her, gripped her new nylons, and ripped them to shreds.
O
n Sunday, after church, Velman Cooper came out to our house and drove away with our mother.When he brought her home late that evening, she was carrying a clock similar to the one she had thrown and broken, and a radio—something we had never owned. She placed the items on the seat of a chair, then she turned to me.
“Where’s my money?” she asked. “I know Crow gave you some money.Where is it, Tangy Mae?”
How did she know? I averted my eyes, stared down at my hands, and probably looked guilty, but I said, “Mama, he didn’t.”
“Don’t lie to me ’cause I know he did. Crow all time throwing money ’round like it grow on trees. Give it here, Tangy Mae.”
I scanned the room for an ally. It seemed to me that my brothers and sisters were hiding in shadows, dissociating themselves from me.
I thought about the money I had removed from the book and tucked into my socks, and I could see my prom dress caught up in a hurricane, whirling away from me. In the eye of the storm, I stood determined. I was not going to give it up, but my mother stepped forward and stood toe to toe with me, breathing a dragon’s breath onto me.
My dissolution was swift. My back went limp and my fingers reached down into my left sock where I had hid the twenty-dollar bill. I pulled it out and gave it to my mother. I had been afraid to go for the five because it might not have been enough, and then I would have lost it all.
Mama seemed satisfied.“That’s right,” she said, fingering the bill. “I knew he gave you something. Don’t ever try to steal from me.”
“But, Mama,” I said, “what about my dress for the prom?”
“You want a dress? Get a job. That’s what you do, Tangy Mae.
You get a job.”
I was not stupid ordinarily, and so I blame my behavior on my desire to impress Jeff Stallings. Desperately, I reached out and tried
to retrieve my money from my mother’s hand. She clenched a fist around the bill, looked me in my eyes, and began to laugh. I had gotten away with one impulsive moment of impertinence, but . . .
Anger is airborne. It can be inhaled, and once it enters a body it becomes a tenacious blob of blues and browns with tiny speckles of red. It settles heavy in the lungs, making breathing ever so difficult.
. . . I had been infected with anger.
“Give it back, Mama,” I wheezed.“It’s mine and I want it. I need it.”
She stood there toying with the bill, stretching it out, folding it in half, and wrapping it around her fingers.“You don’t need shit, Tangy Mae,” she said.“Everything you ever needed, I gave you.You remember that.Don’t you go getting no big head just ’cause Crow came through town. I mean it.”
The gray-eyed witch of a woman stood between me and happiness. I felt, for a fleeting instant, that I might attack her, but not alone. I needed an accomplice, someone strong and vindictive.
“You won’t let us have anything!” I shouted. “You take it all.
Why do you do that?”
She continued to laugh. It was obvious that I could not reason with her.Anyway, I was beyond trying.
“Tarabelle!” I cried. My hand rose and I pointed an accusing finger at my mother.“Tarabelle, she has your ticket. Mushy sent it weeks ago, and Mama took it. She takes everything.”
“What?”Tarabelle’s voice came from the shadows, but she did not move to my side. I was left standing alone, pointing a finger at my mother.
Mama bent that finger.The pain radiated along the back of my hand, into my wrist, and up my arm to the elbow, until finally I heard a snap—like a dew-kissed string bean—and the oddest sound crackled in my throat.
F
our days passed before Miss Pearl examined my finger and declared it “just a little bit sprained.That’s all.”
I didn’t believe her. My finger was swollen, had a camel’s hump at the knuckle, and hurt like the dickens. It didn’t matter that I did not believe Miss Pearl; I was indebted to her. How she had done it, I may never know, but she had gone into my mother’s room that Friday, and emerged with an invitation for me to follow her.
“Come on, Tangy Mae,” she’d said. “You coming wit’ me, and we gon’ get you a dress.”
My dress was new and yellow and frilly and beautiful. I wore white shoes, and white gloves up to my elbows that covered the tape around my
sprained
finger. I felt pretty and shy as I walked, arm in arm, into the gymnasium with Jeff Stallings. Glittering stars and crepe paper moons dangled from the ceiling. The theme was Midnight in the Galaxy. The transformation of the gymnasium nearly took my breath away. Tables had been concealed beneath silver tablecloths that held crescent-shaped candles in crystal holders, and a huge silver dome over a central light fixture cast twinkling stars throughout the hall.
Jeff led me to a table where Evelyn Saunters and Douglas Mayberry were seated. Evelyn, a junior with whom I seldom shared conversation, complimented my dress with a sincerity that made me wish Miss Pearl could have heard. She had spent hours getting me ready for this special occasion, despite objections from her husband that I was too young to be courting.
She had paused in her task to stare at him. “This ain’t got nothing to do wit’ courting, Frank,” she’d said.“This just a few hours in one night in one lifetime.You mean to tell me you don’t think ever’ one of them children out there deserve at least one good time?”
Reluctantly, he had nodded.“You right, Pearl.They do, but that don’t take away from the fact that Tangy Mae awful young for this.”
Miss Pearl had given one of her “so what” grunts, then returned to the task of styling my hair into a fancy bun held by pearl-studded clips.The dress, gloves, earrings, and the white shoes with small heels just right for dancing were all gifts from Miss Pearl.
Mama, persuaded by Miss Pearl, allowed me to stay overnight with her and Mr. Frank, where Jeff picked me up. Just like Mama had thought, he was driving his daddy’s new car. Before I left for the Garrisons’, my mother had spent at least fifteen minutes telling me how I should and should not act on a date. I was not to embarrass her, and I was not to let Jeff touch any part of me, except my hand. What she repeated most was, “Don’t let him kiss on you, Tangy Mae.”
Mr. Frank had stood at the door with an arm draped over his wife’s shoulder.“This a night y’all gon’wanna remember,” he’d said. “I ain’t saying it’s right, but I hope y’all have a good time.You hear?”
We were doing just that. In formal attire and an atmosphere of gaiety, we played at sophistication.We danced, sipped punch from paper cups, and laughed about things we would not have found amusing on any other day. I danced with Jeff over and over again, and I danced with his friend, Douglas.
“You’re really something,” Jeff said to me when Douglas escorted me back to our table. “I believe you could dance all night. I could sit here and watch you all night, too. But I’m plum worn out from dancing.”
For his sake, I tried to sit still; for my sake, I needed to move.He watched me for a moment, then he leaned over and kissed my cheek right there in the gymnasium, under the stars, in front of anybody who happened to be looking, and I didn’t mind at all.The kiss wasn’t so bad, and how could I refuse it in front of Evelyn and Douglas? How could I say no when I was wearing the beautiful corsage he had given me? I didn’t think a kiss on the cheek would embarrass my mother, and for once, I was among people who would not tell.
After the prom, Jeff drove me back to the Garrisons’ house, and we sat in the car. For the first time, he brushed his lips against mine, then quickly pulled them away, and I thought his mother must have told him the same thing my mother had told me.
“When will you turn eighteen so I can marry you?” he asked. I giggled. “In about four years.”
He took my hand in his.“Well, that’s perfect. That’s about the time I’ll be done with college. I’ll come back through here and take you away with me.We’ll go someplace where they don’t have red dirt, or cornfields, or cows, or bad storms, or any of the other junk in Pakersfield.”
“I kind of like the storms,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, lightly and agreeably, “we’ll keep the storms. I’ll just wrap you up and keep you safe.”
“Jeff, I’m not afraid of storms.Are you?”
“Well, I don’t think afraid is the right word.They make me a little nervous, that’s all.”
“Then maybe I’ll have to wrap you up and keep you safe.”
“Show me,” he teased.“Show me how you’d keep me safe.”
“No.” I laughed to hide my embarrassment. “There’s no storm tonight.You come on back with the next storm, and I’ll show you then.”
“It’s a deal,” he said.
At the Garrisons’ front door, under the porch light, Jeff did not kiss me goodnight. He brushed my arm lightly, and winked an eye at me. “I knew you’d be fun,” he said. “I knew if I ever got you away from Mattie, you’d be fun.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Goodnight, Jeff Stallings. I had a wonderful time.”
“Goodnight, Tangy Quinn. I did, too.”
T
he Fourth of July fell on a Friday. God woke up early, before any of us, and painted the sky the softest shade of heavenly blue.He blew a kiss into the air, offering us a gentle breeze against the summer humidity, and when I opened our front door, I saw that He had sent a fearless thrasher to our house. It stood perched atop the weather-worn edge of the porch with its long tail motionless, and it did not fly away, but lingered until I closed the door to keep it out.
We went to the parade in town, and returned to find Mama sitting in the kitchen brooding over nothing that made any sense to me. She wanted Harvey to desert his wife and return to her. I steered clear of the kitchen. Martha Jean had spent her time with Velman Cooper, engrossed in conversation, using signs that were foreign to me. I had experienced a pang of jealously that intensified when Velman reached for Judy and she went to him with the ease of familiarity. Mattie and Tarabelle had walked side by side at the parade, and were off somewhere now, probably in the woods.
Sam and Wallace were out with their friends. I felt lonely.
Martha Jean must have sensed my mood. She put Judy down for a nap, then insisted I join her in the yard. I found myself at one end of a jump rope, twirling for my younger sisters. Halfheartedly, I twirled the rope and watched Laura jump. She was getting better, and jumped sixteen consecutive times before the rope tangled around her ankles. Edna stepped up for her turn, and as we began to twirl for her, an angel peered down on us and shed one giant-sized, humongous tear right in the dirt at Edna’s feet.We glanced up at a blue sky and a bright sun that did not add up to rain, but another drop fell, and then another.
Laura began to chant, “The devil’s beating his wife.The devil’s beating his wife.”
Edna joined in, “The devil’s beating his wife.”
For all of sixty seconds, just long enough to kick up a little dust, the angel wept in quarter-sized drops, but the sun dried the drops on our arms almost as fast as they fell.We began to twirl the rope again, and Edna jumped to the rhythm of her chant. Suddenly, the twirling ceased at Martha Jean’s end. I saw her head lift and tilt slightly as if she’d heard something, then the rope flew from her hand and she cut loose the most bloodcurdling wail. She began to run for the house. My gaze followed her. She had seen Judy, whimpering in our mother’s grip.
Mama stood at the edge of the porch dangling our baby sister over the side by one arm. As Martha Jean rushed toward them, Mama swung out once, twice. . . .
With my hands to my throat, I waited for a third swing that never came.Mama, staring blankly into space, opened her hand and released Judy. I saw my baby sister sail through the air, flipping and jerking, as she began a descent that took her over the rocky incline and down into the gully.
If there was a sound of impact, I did not hear it over Martha Jean’s wails. She teetered for a moment between the bottom step and the yard, then she ran beneath the porch, between the poles that supported the house. Her feet left the ground and she dived down the incline as she raced against death to be the first to reach her baby.
I tried to move, but I could not. I stood there staring at the space where my sisters had disappeared until finally Martha Jean’s head came into view. She crawled out of the gully with Judy’s lifeless form cradled in one arm, then she sat on the bank and began to rock back and forth.There was no wailing now, only the rustle of leaves as the wind sang through the trees behind the house, a soft mournful hymn.
Mama peered down from the porch. At some point she had lit a cigarette, and smoke, barely visible, rose toward the porch ceiling and seemed to settle as a halo above her head. My hands clenched into fists as I moved, first toward the porch, then down onto the road. I began to run through Stump Town toward the Garrisons’ house.
Somehow Miss Pearl and Mr. Frank understood my breathless, broken phrases. She tried to calm me while Mr. Frank telephoned the sheriff.
We rode back to Penyon Road in Mr. Frank’s car, and as I climbed from the back seat, I sensed a change had taken place during my absence. Laura and Edna were in the yard where I had left them, Martha Jean was still sitting on the bank cuddling Judy, and Mama was on the porch, but a stillness had settled over the earth. The earlier breeze had dissipated, the humidity had risen to a stifling degree, and we seemed to trudge through quicksand. I saw Miss Pearl lumber up the incline and across the yard toward Martha Jean, and it seemed to take hours for her to get there.When she reached the bank, she dropped to her knees and placed a hand on Martha Jean’s shoulder, and the wailing started up again.
Mr. Frank stood in the yard and stared up at Mama. “Rozelle, what’s done happened out here?” he asked.
“The baby fell off the porch, Frank,” she answered with no remorse or grief in her tone. “She’ll be awright. Children fall all the time.”
“This ’un ain’t gon’ be awright, Rosie,” Miss Pearl said.“You got a dead baby here.You better come on down from there and see ’bout this.”
Mama did not move, not even when the sheriff and Chadlow arrived. Angus Betts strode across our yard, spoke to Mr. Frank, then squatted beside Martha Jean and gently tried to remove Judy from her arms. Martha Jean rocked faster, screamed louder, and held Judy tighter.
Chadlow stood with his arms folded across his chest, staring down at the sheriff, but making no attempt to help. Finally Angus Betts rose to his feet and came to stand below the porch where he squinted up at Mama. For the longest time he said nothing, possibly did not know what to say. He ran a hand through his dark brown hair, pressed his thin lips into a tight line, then shook his head and sighed.
“All I can do is wait for Morris,” he said.“He ought to be here soon. Right now, Rozelle, I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. Looks like she’s dead, but I don’t know.”
I watched the road for the doctor’s car, and finally it rounded the bend. Dr. Mathis got out and came forward with his black bag, a blanket, and the intention of examining Judy. He quickly found that it was not going to be easy. He dropped his bag to the ground and spread the blanket for Martha Jean to lay Judy down. Martha Jean drew away from him, turned her face toward the sky, and let go a scream that caught in her throat and died as a gurgling moan. It must have frightened Dr. Mathis because he stepped back and glanced helplessly at the sheriff.
“Well, Morris, is she dead?” the sheriff asked.
“How the hell do I know, Angus?” Dr. Mathis asked. “I haven’t had a chance to examine her yet.” He turned to Chadlow.“Come give me a hand over here.”
Chadlow moved toward him just as Tarabelle and Mattie emerged from the rear of the house.
“What’s done happened?”Tarabelle asked.
“It’s Judy,” I answered. “I think she’s dead.”
We watched as Chadlow mimicked the sheriff ’s gestures and ran a hand through his own thinning hair. He leaned forward and began trying to pry Judy from Martha Jean’s grip. He couldn’t do it, not even with the doctor’s help. He raised a hand, as if to strike Martha Jean, but the sheriff shouted a warning to him, “Chad, I think that girl is hurting enough, and the last thing we need is a ruckus out here.”
That was when I noticed the first group of people moving tentatively toward our house.They slowed at the bend, moved uneasily toward the field, and watched from a distance. As more and more people arrived, they began to make their way up to the yard.
“Rozelle, what happened here?” the sheriff asked, exasperated now, holding up a hand to keep the crowd at bay.
“You come on up here, Angus, and I’ll tell you what happened,” Mama said.“That’s my baby down there. I guess if she was hurting, she’d be crying, and she ain’t cried, not once.”
Angus Betts inspected our steps before placing a foot on them, then he took them two at a time up to the porch. I gathered Laura and Edna and took them with me to sit on the steps. I wanted to hear what Mama had to say.
“Okay, Rozelle, what happened?” the sheriff asked again.
“I don’t really know, ”Mama answered, and began to sob in her rehearsed, refined manner. “I was playing wit’ my baby right here on the porch.You know how you do. I was swinging her out, trying to get her to laugh. I don’t know what happened. I swung her out that one time and she musta kicked or something ’cause the next thing I knew she was falling.Wadn’t nothing I could do.”
She was convincing. I thought for a moment that maybe I was mistaken in what I thought had happened. I thought she had thrown Judy from the porch, but no mother could do that, not even mine. Could she?
I saw Harvey push through the crowd, followed by Mr. Dobson, then Sam and Hambone. They surrounded Dr. Mathis, and Sam knelt to touch Martha Jean, but she jerked away.
“This makes no sense,” Chadlow said irritably.“There’s enough of us here to hold her down and take that baby away from her.”
Dr. Mathis and Mr. Dobson agreed, but Sam told them to wait just a minute. Chadlow ignored him, and gripped Martha Jean by her shoulders. Her throat was rested now, and she began to scream all over again. Her screams were such that they caused the onlookers to back away and Miss Pearl to wring her hands and weep.
Sam dived toward Chadlow, grabbed the man by his shoulders, and flung him away from Martha Jean. Regaining his balance, Chadlow turned to see that Harvey and Hambone had stepped up and flanked Sam as they squared off against him now. Chadlow was not in uniform like the sheriff; he had no right to a uniform. He wore cuffed trousers and an open-collared shirt with the tail out. He was tall and burly, but I thought Sam stood a chance against him in a fair fight, only nothing about this fight was going to be fair.Chadlow stared at them for a moment, then he inched his shirt up to expose a revolver that was tucked inside the waistband of his trousers.
I truly believe Chadlow would have shot Sam if the sheriff had not intervened.“Chad, did you come to help me or cause me more headache?” he called down from the porch. “What’s wrong with everybody?” He threw his hands up in frustration.“We’ve got a baby that’s either hurt or dead, and all anybody can think about is fighting. Everybody, just move away from that girl! Just move on away!”
He stared down at them, waiting for his command to be obeyed, but nobody moved. Finally he drew his gun and aimed it toward the yard.“Get away from her, or I’ll shoot somebody myself.”
Now they had an out, where nobody would lose face, and after a moment they took it. Hambone clamped a hand on Sam’s shoulder.“ Let’s think about your sisters, man,” he said, and Sam nodded.
The sheriff glared down at Chadlow, and his lips moved, but whatever it was he wanted to say, he kept it to himself. He holstered his weapon and turned back to Mama.“Tell me one more time, Rozelle, why would you swing a baby out from this porch? Didn’t you think for one minute that you could drop her?”
“I swung all my children out from here—from the oldest to the youngest. I ain’t never dropped a one ’til today. I’d do anything to take it back.”
“But you can’t take it back, now can you?”
“No, Angus, I can’t take it back.”
“Well, it’s just a mess, Rozelle,” he said. “It’s just a mess.”
“I know.”Mama wept.
Softening in the face of my mother’s assumed anguish, the sheriff said, “These things happen sometimes and only God knows why. If she’s dead, and I pray she’s not, I’ll need you to come to my office in the morning, but it sounds pretty much like an accident to me.”
Down in the yard Dr. Mathis opened his bag and withdrew a syringe.“Angus,” he called out, “I’m going to have to give this girl something.That’s the only way I’ll ever get to examine the baby.”
“Do what you have to do, Morris,” the sheriff said wearily, “just do it right, will you?”
Mama moved to the very edge of the porch and studied the gathering crowd for a minute or two, then she gave a short cry, swooned, and fell into the sheriff ’s arms.
“Some of you ladies come see after her, why don’t you?” he called down.
I didn’t move, except maybe an inch or two to let Miss Janie and Miss Pearl up the steps. I was trying to see what Dr. Mathis was going to do to Martha Jean.
“They say Judy is dead, ”Wallace whispered. “Is it true, Tan?
People saying it all over Stump Town.”
Wallace must have arrived while I had been watching the doctor. I hadn’t seen him come. I nodded, although nothing seemed real. Judy couldn’t really be dead; she was just a baby.
I don’t know when Velman Cooper arrived, but I saw him part the crowd and take long strides across the yard. He was still wearing the blue jeans he had worn to the parade and the T-shirt that Judy had nestled her head against. He sat on the ground beside Martha Jean, crossed his legs, and watched as Dr.Mathis tried to get Harvey and Hambone to hold Martha Jean for him.They wouldn’t do it, though, and I thought I understood. Martha Jean would have to give Judy up on her own. Chadlow probably would have helped the doctor, but he couldn’t risk turning his back to Sam.
Velman began to move his fingers before Martha Jean’s face.The onlookers could not hear the words my sister heard, but I understood them all, clearly. “Martha Jean, trust me. Give Judy to the doctor.Will you let her go?”
Martha Jean shook her head, but I could tell by the movement of her elbows that she had loosened her grip on Judy. I could not see her fingers from my place on the step, but she was responding to Velman. I knew that.
“Give her to me, ”Velman signed.“I want to hold her. I need to hold her. If you let her go, I will take you away from here. I promise. Trust me.”
How he intended to keep that promise was beyond me, and Martha Jean must have wondered, too. The minutes passed like hours with everybody waiting to see what would happen, if Martha Jean would pull away from Velman, if Dr. Mathis would have to give her a shot, if Mama would come down from the porch. None of those things happened. Martha Jean must have wanted to trust Velman because slowly she leaned forward and kissed her baby, then she gave Judy over to Velman.An overwhelming sadness consumed me as Velman gave Judy a final kiss and offered her small, still body to Dr. Mathis, and Dr. Mathis, after an expeditious examination, nodded to the sheriff that Judy was indeed dead.
