Apron Strings (28 page)

Mazine had horror stories for almost any natural occurrence. One of her stories about bats imparted in me a terrible fear of them getting into my hair. I had hair down to the middle of my back. I loved chewing gum. My mother despised the stuff and it was a rare treat when I had any of it. When I did get gum, I didn’t spit it out at bedtime. More than once I’d have to sit still while Ethel scraped chewing gum out of the rat’s nest that had grown overnight when the gum fell out of my mouth. The pain of Ethel tugging at the gum in my hair was all I could think of as Mazine expounded on the terrors of having a bat caught in your hair. “You jest gotta cut it out,” she said. The idea of a live flying mouse trapped in my
hair, beating its leathery wings in desperation, left me weak. Never mind that someone would have to have the wherewithal to get close enough to cut the thing loose.

Not long after that, a bat made the huge mistake of flying through Mazine’s open window. The shrieks that emanated from the third floor roused the whole house. Cowering in her room, she whooped and hollered as if being tortured.

Helen and I heard my mother run up the stairs calling, “What’s the matter?” in a frightened voice. Her question was answered by more whoops. We opened our bedroom door and peeped up at her.

“Isa bat, isa bat! Lord, Miz Ginny, git it. Please, git it,” Mazine wailed desperately from her room.

“Sallee, go get a broom,” my mother directed. “Hurry.”

I tore downstairs to the kitchen, sure that Mazine must be in grave danger, and anxious with the belief that every second might count. The broom was between the wall and the icebox. The difficulty lay in trying to retrieve it. My arms weren’t long enough. I squeezed myself as hard as I could into the narrow opening. I just couldn’t reach it. I pushed and pushed. I tried to squeeze my head into the space. There was no give in the wall or the refrigerator and my head hurt from the pressure. The broom was just out of my grasp. I could touch the bristles, but could not gain a purchase on them. I raced back upstairs and reported, “I can’t get it.”

Mazine let loose another shriek. With an exasperated sigh, my mother pushed past me on the steps. Her disapproval burned into me. Desperate to make amends, I steeled myself to confront whatever awaited me within Mazine’s room. Just as I opened the door, I heard my mother call from downstairs, “Don’t open that door!” The bat flew out and flailed around over my head. Modesty long forgotten, Mazine had pulled her nightgown up over her head and was peering out from under it at me, her rescuer, as I struggled to remain conscious. Mazine’s tale of bats getting caught in your hair whirled around in my head as the bat flew over it.

The next morning I awoke to Helen looking at me like I was an exhibit at the zoo. “You must’ve been tired,” she said. “You fell asleep standin’ up. Right in front of Mazine’s door. I watched. She opened it
and one minute you were there, then there you were, asleep on the floor; quick as that. Gordy opened the window. The bat flew out. You missed the whole thing. It was fun.”

“Mazine got a job as a grocery store checker,” Leola crowed while visiting with Ethel. “Dats why she ain’t comin’ to work no mo.”

“Why you tellin’ me? Ain’t she growed enough to quit her ownself wit’out her mama doin’ it for her? Is I s’posed to be tellin’ Miz Ginny or is you?”

Ethel was called on to babysit after that. If she couldn’t do it, she’d arrange for someone else to sit for us.

“Ethel, I’m going out tonight. Could you get Roberta to sit?” my mother asked Ethel on Saturday afternoon.

“I’s can do it, Miz Ginny. I ain’t got no plans.”

“I’d rather have Roberta if she’s available. She can drive.” My mother added, “If Roberta can’t do it then you can.”

Helen and I were sitting at the kitchen table listening to the conversation. When Ethel left the kitchen to call Roberta we crossed our fingers hoping Roberta would be busy and Ethel could stay with us. Roberta talked really slow with a real deep and raspy voice like she smoked cigars. Everything she said sounded grumpy, even if it wasn’t. It didn’t help that she was also short tempered. Her broad mouth stayed frozen in a sneer. She was our least favorite sitter.

“Miz Ginny, Roberta say she can sit tonight. What time you want her?”

“Five-thirty would be good.”

Helen and I groaned and left the kitchen. “Do you remember the last time she sat and drove Mama to that party way out in the country?” she asked me looking a little sick.

“How could I forget it? I thought we were goners.”

Gordy came in and flopped on my bed. “What are you guys doing?”

“Mama’s going out tonight and guess who’s babysitting?” Helen said.

“Please say it isn’t Roberta, please, please.” We both nodded are heads up and down. “Oh God, I hate when she sits. Is she driving Mama to a party?” Again we nodded.

I’d rather stay home alone then get in the car with her. “Where’s the party?” We both shrugged. “She’s gonna kill us one of these days. Somebody oughta tell Mama what a terrible driver she is.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “I bet she doesn’t like how Roberta drives. You notice she never lets Roberta drive to the party. I think I could do a better job driving.”

“I know I could,” Gordy said.

It was as bad as we thought it was going to be. The party was on a road called Twenty-One Curves. I counted every one of them on the way out there. After my mother got out, Roberta whipped the car out of the driveway and I swear she didn’t bother to look to see if anyone was coming. She was just about up to the speed of light when she slammed on the brakes and then creeped along like a bug. The baby rocked around in the car bed that was wedged up against the front seat. I don’t know why he wasn’t in the front seat when she slammed on the brakes; our heads hit the back of the seat in front of us. The fact that there was one turn after another didn’t seem to make a bit of difference to her. As we were going ninety miles an hour around a bend in the road I said, “Roberta, could you slow down a little? I’m scared.”

Roberta’s temperament was as unpredictable as her driving. “You ain’t go nuttin’ to be ‘fraid of,” she assured me—albeit gruffly. “I’ll get ya home in no time.” We hung on to the armrests and each other while staring ahead wild-eyed; the landscape tearing by us in a blur. As the tires squealed, Helen looked like she was going to cry. My knees shook so badly that when we finally got home, I couldn’t get out of the car for a good five minutes. Roberta stood outside the car casting furtive glances toward the Dabney’s house. “Come on, honey, you git out ta dis here car. I’s got ta gets you chil’ren in de house. Come on.” Her coaxing had taken on a harder edge. “Now.” She shepherded us up the walk and into the house at a trot. Once in the house she slammed the door and locked it —something I don’t remember anyone having ever done before. Then she ran to every outside door in the house and locked them up tight, even the door to the basement.

I went straight to bed. I found Helen staring out the window at my mother’s car. “I don’t think she pulled up the brake like Momma does,” she whispered. “What if it rolls down the hill and crashes?”

“Good. Maybe she’ll get arrested and be put in jail. Then we won’t have to ride with her anymore,” I said as I sank under the covers. Why do you think she was so busy locking all the doors?”

Do you think Mamma will be able to get in when she gets home?” Helen whined

“You worry too much.” I said, turned over, and went to sleep.

Ethel had two other stand-ins if she wasn’t able to take care of us when my mother went out. One was Mattie Bruce; the other, Ethel’s mother, Bertha. I loved Bertha. She looked just like an Indian squaw when she didn’t have her hair twisted up around her head. She had skin of the warmest color I ever saw, like if you could mix copper with cream. When she smiled, her face shone as bright as a new penny. She talked really slowly, too, and never once did I ever hear her say an unkind word to anyone. Bertha paid attention to what you said. She’d stop what she was doing and look right at me when I talked to her, like what I was saying was the most important thing in the world.

“Bertha, why does Ethel have a different name?” I asked one afternoon while she was preparing our dinner. Bertha had five daughters with a curious distinction. There was Alberta, the oldest, then Roberta, then there was Ethel, poor, simple Huberta, and Viberta the baby.

“I ran outta Bertas,” she said.

“But she was in the middle.”

“That’s right. I liked the sound so much I made up the other two my own self when the next set of slit tails showed up. But all our names ends in ‘a’.”

“Hum, that’s interesting. Why’s that?” I began. Then, before she could answer I protested, “Wait, Ethel’s name doesn’t end with an ‘a’.”

“‘Cause I liked it that way, I guess. An’ it do end wit’ an ‘a’, too. Her name is Ethelia.”

“Didn’t you get confused when you called ‘em?” I asked. “Daddy does with us, and we all have different names,” I said as I tried to imagine what it might have sounded like if Bertha called all of her girls to supper like Ethel did us. I tried it for her. “Al-Burrr-da, Roe-burrr-da, Ethel-ya, Hu-burrr-da, Vi-burrr-da. Boy, you’d be tired before you finished,” I concluded.

“I’d jest call ‘Berta’ and dey all answered ‘cept Ethel. Thas why I wents back to Berta. Worked right good,” she chuckled, obviously pleased with her ingenuity.

Bertha would sit on a chair by my bed, snuggling my baby brother and telling me stories about mother sun and sister moon. Even Denny seemed happier with her; he didn’t cry as much—probably because she held him and rocked him any chance she got. “Purdiest chile,” she’d croon. I wasn’t convinced of that, but I did like him better when Bertha was around.

Bertha stayed with us a whole week once when Ethel was sick or drunk and my mother went to New York shopping with Uncle James and Aunt Lizbeth. That week there was an aurora borealis. Having never seen the northern lights, as vibrant as it was, I was concerned. “Look outside, Bertha, the sky’s all red and purple and streaky. Is something the matter?”

“Darlin’, chile, thas jest God paintin’ you a pitchur in the sky. Don’ worry none, honey. I ain’t gon let nothin’ happen to ya.” She wrapped me in her strong arms and sat with me until I fell asleep. That week went by faster than it should have and even though my mother brought us candy gold coins in little sacks, I was sorry to see Bertha’s stay come to an end. I could see how Bertha was Ethel’s mother, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make out how she was also Roberta the maniac’s mother. That was another one of those questions I figured it was best not to ask. One thing I didn’t want to do was to find out that Bertha could get mad, especially at me.

While Bertha was by far my favorite sitter, Mattie Bruce gave Roberta a run for worst. Mattie Bruce was a third string babysitter. She was called on when none of the others were available. She worked for Gordy’s friend George’s mother across the street from us. Mattie Bruce was the closest thing to the Tasmanian devil that there ever was in human form. She made Ethel look tall. Though she wasn’t anywhere near as fat as Ethel, she was, as Ethel would say, “stout.” While Ethel’s body sort of spilled all over soft and unbounded, Mattie Bruce’s round and hard body reminded me of a spider with skinny arms and legs. Everything she did, she did double time. I could hardly understand her, she talked so fast. And if Bertha calmed Denny down, Mattie Bruce did the opposite—she’d
whirl around the house, rattling off commands a mile a minute, and before you knew it, Denny would be crying; his screams adding to the confusion and making Mattie Bruce shout to be heard.

George grew up listening to Mattie Bruce, so he didn’t seem to have much trouble understanding her. As for me, I couldn’t so much as read her tone. She always sounded mad to me. It wasn’t clear if she stuttered or she thought everything she said bore repeating.

Occasionally George’s mother invited us to stay for a peanut butter sandwich. The call for lunch was not like any I had ever heard—more like the mating call of a rare species of bird. Mattie Bruce would come to the kitchen door and in her nervous, high-pitched voice shriek, “Com-ma, com-ma, com-ma.”

George translated for us: “It’s lunchtime.”

He wasn’t around to translate when Mattie Bruce babysat. Whenever she called, it fell upon us to guess what she wanted us to do. The challenge of deciphering her words correctly was reason enough to avoid her. We’d played outside long after dinner one night when Mattie Bruce was sitting. She didn’t seem to find it strange that three small children were playing outside in the dark.

At nine o’clock sharp, Mattie Bruce yelled out to us, “Com-ma, com-ma, com-ma”

“Do you think she’s calling us for lunch?” I asked. “Didn’t George say that meant lunchtime?”

Gordy said, “She’s probably callin’ us into the house. It is dark. I think she means come on.”

She asked, “Wheredadishragsat?” while Helen and I were brushing our teeth.

“What? I’m sorry.”

“Dishrag. Whereitat?” she asked again at supersonic speed.

“I don’t know,” I said dumbly.

Mattie Bruce always came and went in a taxi. After she went downstairs, I crept into my mother’s room. I pulled out the drawer where the phonebook was kept. I found the number for Pace’s taxi and called it. After giving our address, I quietly stole back into our room and waited at the window. Five minutes later a cab drove up our drive. When the
driver came to the door, Mattie Brue nearly “Nobody here called” the poor man to death. After he had driven away, she was heard mumbling “Nobody here called” for a good twenty minutes. Helen and I laughed a little, but we were disappointed that she didn’t leave in the cab.

Ethel was becoming less and less forthcoming with answers to my questions. Uncle Dennis, the only brother that my mother didn’t see regularly, had been in the state hospital. There was a lot of commotion about his coming home, and I wanted to know why. I asked Ethel and she said that I didn’t need to know. I asked why he had been in the hospital and she wouldn’t answer that either. Sometime in early June when my uncle came home, my mother and her friend, Miz Chambers, planned a party. I heard them talking about what they should drink. Miz Chambers said, “I think beer will be fine, Ginny. It won’t make any difference if he has a beer or two.”