The Matter Is Life (19 page)

I loved him, so I said, “He my husband! He a man.”

Dora had a hard laugh sometime, she used it then. Said, “He another child of yours. He need whippin.”

I say, “I can’t whip him. If I do, he lose his manhood. And he got to have some manhood about him and all.”

She say, laughin hard and low again, “He look out for his manhood well enough not to need you to do it for him. His manhood is his problem and yours too! I don’t even want my daughters to know such a kinda manhood. They goin somewheres sides out in the streets to look for some man.” She looked over at Lovedora who had done perked up to hear harder. “Least, I sure hope so.” She ended.

All in all, Dora had some high hopes and big plans for her girls, or Dora Dolls, as she called em. She worked hard, hard til she was lookin old early herself. Sun-up to sun-down
and some thru the night. She grew old and they grew up. You sure got a job to do if you got four pretty girls to watch over as they growin up. Sides keepin them full and clothed so they don’t need nothin from somebody would take advantage of em. Sometimes it’s more than two people can handle. Dora had to do it … alone.

That photograph picture I got of all of em on the porch of that house what was kind of run down? I blive is the last one of all of em together on that porch, and the last one of them together for a long, long time to come.

When Dora came down a little sick, her back in pain from heavy liftin and long bend-overs, Lovedora was bout eighteen years old. Not married yet cause her mama wouldn’t let her. She liked the boys, specially that one I told you bout. Her mama tried to keep her head full of dreams of going someplace in life, but Ken filled them little empty spaces and grew!

Dora told Lovedora, “You the oldest. It’s your turn to go out in this world and try to find a way to help your sisters get to someplace in this world.”

Lovedora smiled her sweet, lovin smile.

Dora’s voice got hard. “I mean that you can’t think bout no boys right now! We all need everything! Your three sisters got to find a way out of the house and this town. I want you to help find a way to prepare for them cause you the oldest. We countin on you!”

Lovedora smiled her sweet, lovin smile.

Now, I can only tell you bout one of em at a time, cause they is four of em.

Me? Well, you know I had my family. I was kinda a bed and breakfast woman. Get in bed, make love, make babies,
get up and cook, wash, iron, clean, garden, cause we sure needed that extra free food, then get in bed and start all over again, gettin to breakfast and all that work again. I was tired, but I sure thought I was happy cause I didn’t know what else to think. I did think Dora was kinda crazy, pushin her children like that. I laughed at them … goin SOMEWHERE! Ha.

But anyway.… So that’s how Lovedora went and got started.

“You can wash, cook, clean, read, add, subtract, speak well, walk, run, and more. You healthy and clean. I got you a job as a clerk over at that dress shop. Don’t pay much but you ain’t makin nothin now! You can start there, learn all you can. When your next sister in line gets to work, we save all our money and maybe one day we have us a swell shop of our own. Windora can sew beautiful. Endora can do somethin! We goin somewhere. All we got to do is work … together.” Lovedora had listened, her mama’s words was ringin in her pretty ears as she bathed and dressed in one of Windora’s own dresses she had made. Her sisters watchin her, smiling. Gettin ready to get over.

On that bright Monday morning she started out to work. But work was really not on her mind. She wanted to get married. They had already done planned it. Her and that boy, Ken. His family had a farm and they was gonna live there and work on that farm cause that boy said he couldn’t
leave his mama and papa, he bein the only boy-child. He was needed. She saw his need better than she saw her mama’s. Ain’t children somethin!?

But, still, Lovedora tried to do what her mama wanted her to. She always tried to do what people she loved say. She worked in that store bout two weeks. She did alright … but she was always dreamin of that Ken she was goin to marry. They was always talkin, too. He was always, after his work of course, leanin on a buildin not too far away from her job, or standin cross the street from it. She run out every chance she get, to talk to him. They kept makin them plans, chile, til Lovedora quit that job and ran off on her payday, bought her own weddin ring and married that man on the same day! She saved some money out for Dora, tho, and gave it to her when they stopped by the house to tell her. Lovedora was too romantic to be scared of her mama.

Dora was so stunned off her feet, all she could do was sit down, drop her lips open and stare at them children, wonderin what she had done wrong. She hadn’t done nothin wrong, just everybody got they own mind to deal with. And what anybody gonna do bout love?

Dora try to say it ain’t love, just romance, and Lovedora would suffer for it. But Lovedora looked happy to me. When they left, Dora went to bed and stayed there for two days, cryin at the waste, she said. Anyway, Windora got sent down to keep that job Lovedora walked off of. She seem glad to go! Wasn’t no love on her mind. Just gettin ahead and out!

Lovedora and Ken was happy for a long time. Bout two or three years. Didn’t no children come. Both Dora and Ken’s mama and papa was glad bout that. But the man, Ken, started changin.

See … Lovedora did love everything. She loved all the animals on the little farm. Specially the new born. She even took care his retarded sister, playin with her and, Lord knows, hadn’t nobody taken up no time with that child in yearrrrs. They was all used to her and tired of that poor chile. But Lovedora cared for her. She took pleasure in it.

Lovedora ran, jumped, played round that farm til it look like she was havin a good time and lots of fun. That began to make that man annoyed and mad at her. She be laughin and he be tired and get mad. Well, he sure be workin in the hot sun on the hard land. His family was grudgin him his pay for bringin home a poor wife so early in his life, fore they could get all they could out of him, you see. They prayed she didn’t get no babies, and that might be why she didn’t, but she sure didn’t. I wish somebody had prayed over me!

You all know what all a family can do to make your life miserble. In two, three years, he was miserble and he was makin Lovedora miserble too. She didn’t understand why, cause she was still in love with love. She got sadder and sadder. Laughter got low or not at all. She stuck to the animals more, til his family thought she was a real sure-nuff fool. Ken took to goin out nights, even in his overalls, and comin home jumpin on that pretty child. Not too much, cause he was scared of Dora who walked over there every Saturday or so. Lovedora didn’t tell her mama bout them whippins, so she couldn’t get no help there. His mama didn’t give a damn cause she had done taken her licks and still did sometimes. I think she was glad of em, myself.

Long with all the dirty work they could get Lovedora to do, was the walk to the road to get the mail. Now, there was a son-man who pass up that road sometimes goin to see his
family who live cross the way from Ken’s folks. He was a very nice-lookin man, but his looks didn’t have nothin to do with his heart. He had a oldish, blue cadillac with a few dents in it, and he dress what look like nice in little cheap suits from our little cheap partment store. He walk real slow, always lookin over his shoulders to keep up with what’s goin on round him. Lovedora loved his car cause it was blue, so he took to wearin plenty of blue when he take that ride to his folks. He always stop and talk to her, make her laugh, listen to her troubles, til she rush on back to her misery house. It got to be that bout every time Lovedora go to get the mail, he just be passin by. They talk some more.

He lean over toward her, his hat crooked on the side of his head, his arm restin on the seat top in such a way she couldn’t see the split in the seams under his arm, his knees wide open neath the steerin wheel, wigglin a little. A smile that woulda broke his mother’s heart could she see it, stead of that sad face he make when he ask his mama bout her money.

He say to Lovedora, “Sugah, what you need, a fine woman like you, is a real man to preciate you.”

Lovedora say, sadly, “Well, my husband, I think he really try …”

“Darlin, I am too much of a man to say somethin bout another man, but I care too much about you not to tell you the truth. That boy you got for a husband, he don’t know what to do with you! You are the cream of the crop. A queen! He don’t know nothin bout no queens.”

Lovedora grin, glad to hear somethin nice bout herself. “Ohhhh, you go on. I am not a queen. I’m just a woman who wants to be treated right.”

He grins, showin them teeth what needs to see a dentist … soon. “Baby, he don’t know nothin bout life. He need to grow up, be a man. Now me … I am a man. One of these days, when you be thinkin like a sure-nuff serious, grown-up woman, you gonna let me show you the world and how it feels to have a honest-to-god real man that treat you like the queen you is!”

Then Lovedora smile and walk real slow back to misery house, thinkin.

She stuck with Ken bout a year more, til he came home one night and abused her with his fists for no reason at all cept she was full of love and didn’t know how to be mean back. Then he had sex on her and fell asleep. She got up in misery in the gray morning, packed a little shoppin bag with a few of her things and set out walkin back to her mama. She did kiss the retarded sister good-by, and took whatever little happiness that girl was gonna have in her life with her.

Now, I know that man did not just sit out there and wait to see when Lovedora came out, but some kinda reason, he was passin down that road that mornin. He came along whilst she was walkin down the road, tiltin with carryin that bag, and offered her a ride home. She accepted. But he didn’t take her to her mama’s house, he took her to his room on the main sportin street in town. All the way there he was justa tellin Lovedora bout how long he had loved her and what all they could do together now she had left that fool.

She just stared at him, big-eyed (one gettin black), and she was in such a pitiful state of need in her heart, she just shifted that love she had done had for Ken right on over to Zero. They gave him that nickname in school because he got so many of em. It wasn’t but bout three days fore Lovedora
was not only livin on that street, but was walkin it, makin money for Zero so they could have their dreams.

She thought she was in love and didn’t know what she was doin. I blive she was innocent in her heart. I hate to think that woman’s head was empty. Cause, in time, that woman whored some, stole some, lied a lot to mens. She thought they was gonna have a life with the money they made together. She didn’t have sense enough to see he wasn’t makin NONE! He said he was goin to let his other woman go when they had enough saved. Only, he didn’t save NONE. He just stand in front of that Town Bar, leanin on the wall watchin how many men his women caught. He spent that money gamblin and snifflin that dope, or whatever they do with it.

After the umpteenth time her mama had done been down there, threatenin to kill Zero, but she couldn’t never find him!, she made Lovedora go home with her. Bathed her, fed her, stroked her, loved her and sure did talk to her with every stroke of wisdom she could find, and prayed over her. Lovedora went back down there to Zero cause she thought she loved him. Broke Dora’s heart … again … and again … and again. She want to go back down to that street and shoot that Zero, but I talked her out of it. Told her, “You can’t go round killin people! Your daughter done made up her own mind bout that man! You can’t shoot him! Do … you gonna have a bigger sin on your hands!” Yes, I told her that. Me!

It had been three years her first daughter had been in sportin life. The others was doin alright, as alright goes, but the one you hurt the most for is the one who is hurtin! For Dora, that was Lovedora, then.

But I blive when somethin is in a child, it will have to come to the top just like cream. In time, things her mama had raised her on came to the top of her brain. It happened in another strange way. Of course, she fell in love again, that was just her way. Of course, her type of livin helped!

Nights with strangers slobberin, pawin all over you just cause they got ten or twenty dollars. Puttin somethin, so private it was the first thing Adam and Eve covered up, inside your body. Comin “home” so tired and dirty, maybe full of them little germs that mean dirty business eatin up your insides. Gettin beat up if you ain’t got enough money for a man who ain’t been doin nothin but talkin, laughin and throwin the money away what you go through all them things for. Puttin things in your mouth the good Lord saw sense in puttin tween somebody’s else’s legs. Lovedora did refuse to do that tho. Bein put out, in the middle of a dark, cold mornin, to get out and make some more money for some dope or somethin to gamble with! All for some nothin that don’t care nothin bout you! And who respects you for bein a good money-maker? No! nobody. Not even him, who you make it for!

Lovedora woke up one mornin and she was miserble, miserble! Poor little thing, just want to love somebody … not everybody! Heart so big it pressed in on her brain … slowed it down. She didn’t like sellin her body, it had been for Zero and their future. Her mama had taught her better, much better. Said, “Get somewhere in the world,” not “Lay down for the world.” And another thing happened. Ken, her ex-husband, came down to buy some of what he used to get free, from her. Zero called to Ken, and Lovedora heard him say to him, “Do what you wants to to the bitch. Just don’t
fuck with my money and don’t put no marks on her, cause she got to work!” Wasn’t he nothin!? I’m glad she heard him cause she was a wide-hearted woman gettin to be a wide-legged fool. Lonely, even with all them men jumpin in her.