Corregidora (Bluestreak) (3 page)

“I told him.”

I patted his knee. He smiled a little, but said nothing.

“What do you want, Ursa?”

I looked at him with a slight smile that left quickly. “What do you mean?”

“What I said. What do you want?”

I smiled again. “What all us Corregidora women want. Have been taught to want. To make generations.” I stopped smiling.

He looked at me. “What do you want, Ursa?”

“More than yourself?”

He raised me and kissed me very hard.

“I’ll let you sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

“Then rest.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be back up later and fix us something to eat.”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“No, I want to.”

“Okay.”

He started to go.

“When the doctor gave you that menu for me, who did you say you were?”

“I didn’t say.”

“Who did he
think
you were?”

He didn’t say. He went downstairs.

“… The important thing is making generations. They can burn the papers but they can’t burn conscious, Ursa. And that what makes the evidence. And that’s what makes the verdict.”

“Procreation. That could also be a slave-breeder’s way of thinking.”

“But it’s not.”

“No. And you can’t.”

“Not anymore, no.”

Gram was standing in the doorway looking down at me. She looked tall then, because I was little, but Mama said she wasn’t no more than five feet.

“… His hair was so dark and greasy straight you could a swore he was pure Indian, but if you even dare say something, he stick a poker up your ass, a hot coal poker. Naw, but he wasn’t though. He was from over there somewhere in Portugal. Naw, it wasn’t Lisbon. That’s the capital. Naw, I don’t know where. He probably didn’t even know where. He was a seaman. Naw, a sea captain. That’s why the king give him lands, and slaves and things, but he didn’t hardly use nothing but the womens. Naw, he wasn’t the first that did it. There was plenty that did it. Make the women fuck and then take their money. And you know sometimes the mistresses was doing it too so they could have little pocket money that their husbands didn’t know about. And getting their brothers and their brother’s friends and other mens they know, you know, and then they make theyselves right smart money for their purse. Naw, his wife didn’t do that. She sleep with you herself. I guess she didn’t wont no money. Or didn’t need none. Or just figure it was all the same. That hot climate. Nose like a baby hawk. Naw, she couldn’t do a damn thing. Naw, she didn’t give him nothing but a little sick rabbit that didn’t live but to be a day old. So then he just stopped doing it. Naw, she couldn’t do a damn thing.”

“No, because it depends on if it’s for you or somebody else. Your life or theirs.”

I wouldn’t take my eyes off her. She kept looking down at me.

“What you doing?”

Cat had come in but I hadn’t heard her.

“Tadpole said you might be sleeping, but I said I’d just peep in and see and if you was, I wouldn’t bother you. He’s got right evil these days.”

“Yeah. Naw, I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Just thinking?”

“Yeah.”

“I seen you staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, and didn’t know if I should disturb that either.”

“Naw, come on in.”

She came in.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

She came and sat down on the bed.

“You okay? How did it go with the doctor?”

“He took me off the pills. He wonts me to come back in a couple of weeks though, and then I think I can start working again after that.”

“It be good to hear you sing again. Eddy Pace was trash and all they doing down there now is wining and dining. I should say whiskeying.”

“I’m sorry. I wish I wasn’t being so much trouble to him.”

“I didn’t mean nothing by you.”

“If he didn’t have me up here he’d be having a band in.”

“Aw, that nigger don’t care. He rather have you up here anyway.”

I said nothing, then I said, “But seriously, if I don’t start feeling better in another week can I come stay with you?”

“Sure. You could’ve come stayed with me anytime. I just figured things was settled here.”

“No.”

She said nothing, then patted my knee. “Well, you be awright.”

“Mutt still out there?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, Tad said he was.”

“Why you ask me then?”

“No reason.”

She looked at me hard.

“Tad’s seeing a lawyer for me about the divorce and when he gets ready I have to sign the papers.”

“You got Tad seeing him for you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason.”

I looked at her, then I said, “I think maybe we might get together, you know, after all this is over.”

“Then you don’t want to move in with me.”

“Yeah, you know, till I’m feeling better. I don’t want to be a burden to him.”

“You want to be one to me,” she said.

I didn’t answer.

“Okay,” I said finally.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I’ll stay here.”

“Naw, I think it be better if you was over to my place. Sooner the better. But seem like to me you already together. People think you already together.”

“Naw, we not. He’s been a good friend. I don’t care what people think anyway. I never have.”

“What Mutt think?”

“Naw, nor what Mutt think. I told you that story. From the day he throwed me down those stairs we not together, and we not coming back together.”

“It was an accident.”

“You sound like if he was sitting here what he be saying. ‘Aw, honey, I was drunk. Aw, honey, it was a accident. I didn’t mean to do it. You know I wouldn’t’ve done it. You know I’m sorry. All I wanted to do was take care of you like a husband should.’ Now, what good am I for a man?”

“Why don’t you ask Tadpole that?”

I told her to go to hell.

She said she was, if I promised I was still coming back with her.

I said nothing.

“Listen, honey, I’ma tell you something seem like you don’t know or play like you don’t know. Right now’s not the time for you to be grabbing at anything. Any woman to be grabbing at anything. Out of fear. I don’t know what. Ask yourself how did you feel about Tadpole before all of this happened. I know he’s being good to you, but this is a rush job. Just thinking about the two of y’all getting together is a rush job. You know what I mean? He’s looked at you and seem like you scared somebody else won’t. You a beautiful woman. They be many mens that …”

I told her to shut up.

She looked hurt, then she looked evil. “Just listen, will you?” She didn’t give me time to say if I would or I wouldn’t. “You be taking what you need, but do you think you be giving him what he need?”

I said nothing. She got up and went to the door. Then she said, “But even he can’t give you everything you need.” Without turning around, she went out the door.

When Tadpole came upstairs to fix us lunch, I said, “I’m going over to Cat’s.”

He didn’t make any of the expressions I thought he would make.

“Do you want me to take you?” he asked.

“Naw, I can take myself,” I said.

“I’ll take you,” he said. “You’ll have something to eat first.”

“I can get something to eat over there.”

“Well, you not.” He left me and went back in the kitchen.

“Did Cat Lawson say anything to you?” I asked.

“She said you be staying over there now till you get back up on your feet.”

“That all?”

“Yeah.”

He brought me some lunch.

“Ain’t you eating?”

“Naw, I had something downstairs.”

When I finished eating, and was ready to leave, he had one of the boxes and me by the arm and said he’d bring the other box over later.

“Do I get visiting privileges?” he asked as we were going out the door.

“As many as you want.”

When we got there, Cat was straightening Jeffy’s hair. Jeffy was the girl who stayed with her when her mother worked and sometimes when her mother wasn’t working. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Cat was telling her to hold back her ear when we came in and was straightening along the edge.

“I didn’t expect y’all so soon,” she said.

“I thought you did,” I said.

“Which room she got?” Tadpole asked.

“That one in there,” said Cat, nodding to the room to the right of the living room.

“You burned me,” Jeffy said.

“Hush.”

The house had three other rooms, a kitchen and another bedroom and a bathroom, off to the other side of the living room. That room was the only one on that side. I saw a slop jar over in the corner.

Tadpole took the box back in the bedroom. I followed him in.

“Tadpole, turn back the bed for her, will you? My hands greasy.”

“I can do it,” I said.

“Tadpole do it.”

“Ow,” Jeffy said.

“I said hush.”

“You burned me.”

“Hold your ear. If you’d hold your ear like I told you to I wouldn’t a burned you.”

“I’m going back and get the other box,” Tadpole said.

“Okay.”

“Now you can let go,” Cat said to Jeffy.

I came back in the front room. Cat was doing the back.

“Ain’t you better get undressed and get in bed,” she told me.

“I thought I’d sit up for a while,” I said, sitting down on the couch.

“What the doctor say?”

“He said whatever I feel like doing.”

“I know he didn’t say that.”

“As long as I don’t overdo it.”

“Well, you overdone it. Go get in the bed.”

“You not my …”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I seen your Sweet Daddy,” Jeffy said.

“Hush,” Cat said.

“What?”

“I’m just telling her I seen her Sweet Daddy.”

“I said to hush up.”

“He look like he haven’t shaved in about a week.”

Cat hit her up side the head, and she jumped out of the chair, crying, and ran out.

“You better get your ass on back in here, girl,” Cat said.

“Tha’s awright,” I said.

“She be back,” Cat said.

“I’ma tell Mama,” Jeffy sobbed.

“I’ma tell your mama,” Cat said. “Now get your ass on back in here.”

Jeffy came back in and sat down. There were tears in her eyes, but she wasn’t making any noise.

“You don’t get twenty-five and automatically be a woman neither,” Cat said to me. “You better get
yours
in there too.”

I got up and went in the bedroom. I didn’t feel like getting evil.

“That how old she is?” Jeffy asked.

“Yeah.”

“She don’t look it.”

Tadpole came back with the other box. He started out without saying anything.

“Make the first visiting day soon,” I said softly.

He nodded, and went out.

Cat came to close the bedroom door.

“If these niggers start worrying you,” she said, “I might have to move you in the back bedroom.”

I said nothing. She closed the door.

About fifteen minutes later, she opened the door again.

“That baby’s hard, ain’t she? She gone down to her mama’s now. She be back up here though, cause Lurene got to work tonight. They put her on the night shift down to the factory.”

“Aw.”

“They just shifting her every whicha way. I said if I was her I wouldn’t stand for it.”

“If she didn’t stand for it she wouldn’t have a job.”

“Well, I’m glad I do what I do. I ain’t got a license, but leastwise I keep my own hours. And your job, you know. Something like that.”

“I don’t keep my own hours,” I said.

“But you doing something you like doing. You got a talent. A talent or a craft, that’s what I say, and don’t have those sons of a bitches hanging on your neck all the time. And daughters of bitches. When I was young I worked in white women’s kitchens, so I know how it is. Leastwise the factory ain’t a kitchen, but ain’t much different. Still got the devil on your back. Leastwise you like what you do.”

“Yeah, I like it … There’s always something you can do to keep your own hours.”

“Now we ain’t talking about that.”

I laughed. “Well …”

“Hush.”

She sat down in the chair next to the front-room door.

“I suppose I don’t
mind
what I do. It ain’t like when I was young though, you know.”

“You don’t seem old.”

“I don’t know too many people that
seem
old … Well, I better get up from here and leave you alone. Talking about niggers bothering you.” She got up again. “Something I can get you?”

“Naw, thanks.”

“Well, I let you rest. If you wont something, just holler.”

I said I would.

“He leave you alone, didn’t he?”

“Who?”

“Tadpole.”

“Yeah, he left me alone.” I frowned at her. She frowned back, and closed the door again. Then she peeped back in the door.

“What the doctor say you can eat?”

“Anything.”

“I fry you some chicken then for supper.”

“Good.”

She closed the door.

I settled back in the double bed, and pulled the covers up to my neck. The bed was high and it was a large empty room, except for a cedar chest and a wardrobe. There was a window facing the street, with dingy white-lace curtains. I slept.

I woke up to the smell of scorched hair and fried chicken. There was a tap on the door. I said, “Come in.” It was Jeffy.

“Miss Catherine wonts to know how much do you think you can eat?”

“A couple of pieces.”

“That all?”

“I think so.”

“What part do you wont?”

“It don’t matter.”

She closed the door, but not all the way.

“I wont you to take some across the road to Tadpole and down home to your mama, you hear? This bag’s Tadpole’s and this bag’s your mama’s. And don’t eat none on the way.”

“Yes’m.”

The screen door banged.

Cat came in with a plate with two pieces of chicken, a wing and a breast, and mashed potatoes and peas and cornbread.

“I can’t eat all that much,” I said.

“Well, try.”

“I thought you just meant a couple of pieces of chicken.”

“Well, you got to have stuff to go with it.”