Betsey Brown (16 page)

“Why Dr. Brown, I was just going to call you. The police have Betsey in the Reception Room waiting on you. She claims to have forgotten her address and insisted that only her father would understand. Wait one second, I'll call the officers in. Patrolmen McMahon and Carlotti. Please come to Nurses Station C. Officers McMahon and Carlotti, Nurses Station C.”

“Where is she, Miss Jefferson?” Greer forgot all about his patients.

“She'll be right along. The police wouldn't let her out of their sight, 'fraid she might run off again, I guess.”

Greer felt a smile over his body. His hands even grinned seemed like, while he was dialing home to tell Jane Betsey was all right. Vida took the message. She said Jane was in too frail a condition to take such startling news right that minute. Vida added, “Praise Be to the Lord for this, one of His many blessings.” Greer hung up the phone. His eyes filled with visions of his daughter.

“Daddy, Daddy, I knew you'd come! I knew you'd come.”

Betsey leapt into her father's arms crying and smiling at once. She hugged him and kissed him, snuggled and wouldn't let go.

“Dr. Brown, I'm Officer McMahon and this is Officer Carlotti of Juvenile Affairs. Is this girl, Elizabeth Brown, your daughter?”

“Why, yes Sir. She is.”

“May we see some identification, please? There are some forms you'll have to fill out. It's normal for runaways. What got me is she wouldn't say where she lived, only where you worked. We just got here before you came in. She looks to be healthy. Far as we can tell, no danger fell upon her.”

Greer let Betsey down with one of those I'll-be-speaking-to-you-in-a second looks and dealt with the officers. Betsey sat on one of the post-op tables waiting for her father. She didn't know whether to tell him all the things she'd done or be mysterious, or be plain closed-mouthed. She knew there'd be trouble at home. Boy, oh boy.

When Greer came back, he took Betsey off the table. He
didn't know whether to spank her or hug her. Yet he hugged her, just the same.

“Betsey, why did you do it? Why did you run away?”

“I don't know Daddy. I had to, I guess.”

“You had to run away from everybody who loves you and wants you home with them?” Greer drew his daughter under his arms and off they went on rounds, while they talked.

“Well, Daddy. I'm not like the rest of them. I mean I like music that Mommy doesn't like. I like dances Grandma swears are the Devil's doing. I like to read books way into the night and keep the other children awake. I like to make-believe there are no white people. I want my nappy hair to be pretty like Mommy's and refined like she is. And I just can't do it. So I ran away. That's all.”

Greer understood some of what Betsey said. He even felt some of those things himself, sometimes, but he couldn't help laughing at one of Betsey's dilemmas. “Listen here, don't say I told you, but your mother's got a head full of nappy hair. She gets something done to it.”

“Really, Daddy? Honest Injun?”

“Yep.”

Greer listened to Betsey's tales of Mrs. Maureen's and, in fact, she had eaten over to the place where Little Richard ate. All the sick folks were delighted to see the doctor's little girl, but Greer was caught in the middle. Betsey'd run off for the reasons Jane'd claimed, and he had found her in that world, not even trying to go home.

Betsey and Greer said little in the car, but Greer stopped at Arnett's Fried Chicken and Shrimp joint to pick up enough food for the whole family. There was going to be some ranting and raving, but there was going to be some joy and rekindling of family spirit as well.

Betsey stole a few french fries from one of the jumbo packs, and then asked, “Is Mama real upset?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she's going to whip me?”

“I don't know.”

“Did anyone miss me?”

Greer felt his heart clench at the question his daughter asked. Did anyone miss her? The whole house had been down on its knees and the wailing going on rivaled sounds heard in Jerusalem. They had a problem, a real problem, if Betsey didn't know she'd been missed, or if she felt she didn't deserve a whipping, which Greer thought he'd administer himself. The Shirelles were singing “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”

Betsey thought of Eugene, who would definitely “stand by her,” but she wasn't sure how her mama was going to react to all of this. Her father hadn't noticed the rouge on her cheeks, the painted nails and newly pressed head. This would be akin to a matador's cape to Jane's angry eyes when she set them on her wanton child. Betsey curled in the back seat blocking out the hollering and scolding, whipping and tustling that was coming her way. Besides, she'd had a good time, no reason to think she wouldn't have to pay for it.

Gosh, she wished her mother understood there was so much in the world to feel and see. So many things that it was just too hard to be reasonable. A girl had to get out of the house and into the thick of life, the heat of it, not knowing what all one could do with whoever you happened to be. And Betsey had just tried to be herself, where folks would assume that's how she was all the time. Herself. Plain old Betsey Brown.

Allard was the first to spy Greer and Betsey coming up the front stairs. He shouted à la Chuck Berry: “Jesus must have a
telephone/ we callt on him and he brought Betsey home.” Margot and Sharon joined in the chant. Vida sang a soft “Amazing Grace.” Jane rushed through all of them to give her baby a hug. She held Betsey like the very flesh of her flesh had most risen from the dead. She clutched at her arms, her neck, her hair, she caressed her cheeks, her baby, safe.

“Thanks be to the Good Lord.”

“She was waiting for me at the hospital,” Greer bragged, pulling his wife and daughter close to him. “We're all here. Every last one of us and guess what I got?”

“Arnett's fried chicken and shrimp!” the children cried like a Greek chorus.

Vida came up to Betsey and kissed her on both cheeks, tousled her head. “How'd you manage to get your hair done up like that, girl? I'm so glad Christ brought you back safe and sound.”

Betsey hugged her grandma, little tears came to the corners of her eyes. She never intended for Vida to be in a fit. It wasn't good for her health. Vida was too near to heaven's gate for Betsey's liking anyway. What trouble she must have caused. She really could tell from the way Charlie hugged her that he'd been worried.

She'd just wanted to see the world. Marry a Negro man of renown. Change the world. Use white folks' segregated restaurant tables to dance on, and tear down all the “Colored Only” and “Colored Not Allowed” signs. She wanted to be somebody. She wanted to be Miss Elizabeth Brown out in the world, not in a house full of children still learning their tables and long division. She wanted to swing her new hairstyle and have her Humphrey Bogart not be able to keep his eyes off her, while she smuggled rifles for the Resistance. It didn't matter what movie she lived, but the woman had to be a heroine. No, a hero.

Jane swayed in Greer's arms the way she had on her wedding night. Not quite sure she was still herself, but knowing she was still in her right mind. She was so full of gratitude and love, she thought the dampness under her arms must smell of honeysuckle and dahlias, which was a very unlike Jane thought. On the other hand, Jane had never risked so much in her life: her husband and her baby. Now, just like that, the Lord had seen fit for her to know again what she sometimes forgot were blessings. A husband with ideas before their time, and a daughter with the adventure of Amelia Earhart in her soul. But they were hers. Yes, Jesus, this was her family.

“Mama, are you mad at me?” Betsey asked very quietly.

“No, I'm not mad, Betsey. I just think there are some things we have to talk about. Things we have to talk about like women together. I love you so much, darling. There's nothing you could do to change that. But don't worry now, we'll talk.”

Vida had already slipped away to bed to stay on her knees a good while, thanking The Lamb of God for His Grace. The other children wandered to their rooms once all the shrimp and chicken'd disappeared.

Jane looked at Betsey's manicured hands and wondered when was the last time she'd treated herself so kindly. Years ago. It was years ago on a cruise she'd taken to Cherbourg with her new husband. Maybe Betsey's excursion wasn't just a child's first itch to be in the world. Maybe Betsey's flight offered Jane a glimpse of herself fifteen years ago, when she wasn't always shouting “no” or figuring what was for dinner. Years when she went to bed with Matisse on her mind and kisses running along her arms. Times before the children. Times Jane was not just Mommy, but a good-looking woman with a good head on her shoulders.

There wasn't much talking going on in the house that night. A calm filtered the air damp from tears and prayers. Betsey lay softly in her bed cherishing her parents' good-night kisses and remembering she was the first Negro Veiled Prophet's Queen. Jane and Greer made love till dawn, like there would never be enough, like “Dontchu know you make me wanna shout!”

Jane let herself dream like she used to before the children, yearn like she usedta before stretch marks and nursing, be who she was when Greer first courted her, a lady of intellect, mystery, and surprises. A woman who'd not be taken for granted, or slight herself by forgetting how much she was and could be. Jane made love with a passion Greer had to change his style for. She wanted him to know the difference between wife and Jane, Mommy and Jane, social worker and Jane. Jane was still becoming herself.

“Greer, how do you have the energy for all this Africanizing every morning?”

Jane looked rather chic in her psychiatric social worker suit, all beige and taupe. She was smiling more than usual too, but Greer went right on, though he was grinning himself up a storm of hellacious rhythm:

“The Negro race is a mighty one

The work of the Negro is never done

Muscle, brains, and courage galore

Negroes in this house

Meet me at the back door!”

On and on he went almost dancing, pulling Jane into poses quite inappropriate for her attire. He wanted her like last night
or this morning, all undone. Yet he kept a drumming and the children kept a coming, one after the other, half-dressed, heads uncombed, pieces of homework to be checked in their hands.

“Daddy, what's the matter with you. We up,” Betsey half-whispered, wiping sleep from her eyes. Charlie'd started to put the trash out. How in the hell did he know what was on Uncle Greer's mind? Margot and Sharon were trying to do each other's hair. Allard was in the garage lighting matches. One apiece for the KKK. “That's a way,” he'd say. “Burn em away, God, burn em away.” Vida smelled the fires and gave Allard a running chance to miss that switch she'd pulled to snap some sense into his brain, but Greer was just a drumming and a dancing in the kitchen like nobody had to go to work or to school.

“All right, Uncle Greer, let's start the morning quiz. I got a bus to catch.”

“Yeah, Daddy, we got to go all over to the white folks' part of town and that aint no little bit of way, either.” The children chimed in one upon the next.

“There's no quiz this morning,” Greer said matter-of-factly and stopped drumming. “Actually this is more important than a morning quiz. The time has come for us to do something about our second-class citizenship, and this separate but equal travesty we call our lives. This Saturday we are all going to demonstrate at that racist paragon of southern gentility, the Chase Hotel.”

Jane couldn't believe her ears. After everything they'd been through with Betsey, last night, how could he imagine that her children were going to confront wild dogs, hoses, redneck cops, and foolish peckerwoods throwing bottles, eggs, tomatoes, whatever their trashy little hands could find, on her children? Not in this lifetime.

“Greer Brown, you can take your black ass down to the Chase and let them rough you up, but not one of my children is stepping out this door!”

“They're going. It's their struggle.”

“You going to risk my children's lives to pee after some po white trash, or rich white trash for that matter. You are a fool, if you think I'm goin to let you get away with that! You are out of your mind! If you think Brown vs. Ferguson was something, you wait till you hear the doings of Jane Brown vs. Dr. Greer Brown. I mean it! Not one of my children is going to any demonstration. You want a wife and family or you want the colored to drink water all round town, anywhere they want to drink water? You get one or the other, Greer Brown: me and my children or you and the race. It's as simple as that.”

“Usedta be a body could find a Negro boarding house, Greer, where the colored could be themselves and not worry bout trash and they doings and carrying on,” Vida interceded as gently as possible before she went outside to her dahlias.

“That's not enough. Either we're citizens or we might as well be slaves.”

At this point Jane made a motion with her arm for the children to get on to their buses, to get out of her sight before all hell broke loose.

“Greer, I always knew there was a fool somewhere deep down inside of you, but I never in my life imagined that you thought you could use my children to fight a colored folks' battle that colored
men
haven't won yet! You are either crazy or beside yourself with fever.”

“Jane, this is a matter of integrity.”

“Integrity, my ass! It's a matter of my babies' lives!”

“That's why we're going. For their very lives.”

“You can take your foolish behind anywhere you goddam well please, but not my babies.”

“Who am I, Jane?”

“What are you talking about who are you? You're my husband.”