In Search of Satisfaction (11 page)

Aunty tried hard to keep up a thing like she was a normal, happily married woman. But her life was not normal. She had to worry about everything. Don’t even talk about smiling when your husband comes home. Her husband didn’t even work, just went to church, though not as much as Aunty. He was a deacon and liked to be called that. Aunty liked him being a deacon so that’s what he gave her. When she got home, he was not only not smiling he wasn’t waiting for her either.

When Aunty first brought Hosanna home, Uncle Deacon did welcome her. Hugged her a lot, until Aunty looked at him sidewise and said, “You gonna spoil that chile, stop huggin her so much.” He stopped, for awhile. The first five or so years, he wasn’t home much, but when Hosanna got to be around eleven years old, he started staying home a lot more. Maybe because he was getting older, maybe because Hosanna was getting older, her little body filling out a bit, tiny budding breasts and all.

Uncle Deacon liked to play games. He had a lot of children’s games to draw the children in the building to his house. He would meet them at the door, smile (as he seldom smiled at Aunty) and have them come on in. He never had any money for Aunty, but he always had money to buy ice cream or cookies for the children. Boys and girls. They were all welcome.

He was a toucher. A digger with his fingers. These were poor kids who did not get much chance to play indoor games, checkers and such. Or eat ice cream, cake or cookies. Hosanna had fun with the kids and the games. She knew to stay away from Uncle Deacon because she saw him, now and again, touching the other children.

It was a rainy day the day he decided to put his hands on Hosanna. The few children who had come to play this day had gone on home. Aunty wasn’t home yet. Uncle Deacon reached for Hosanna and sat her on his lap. Hosanna had been watching out for this day because she did have good sense. She straightened her body and fell out all over the floor, against the wall, rolled her eyes back in her head and hollered, “Jesus! Jesus!” loud as she could, like she was in the middle of a fit! She tried to throw up on him and acted like she was retching when he would try to reach for her. He would snatch his arms back. Then, “Jesus! Help me!” again. Loud, loud. She hadn’t really planned it that way, but she
knew it was coming one day the way some people just know things. When she found out this scared him, she did it everytime he got his nerve up again. When Aunty was home, too! It got to where he went as far around Hosanna as he could in that small apartment. He didn’t even want to touch her even accidentally! He kept his hands off her. Well, for a long time anyway. Then she had to map out another plan. Being wise was an everyday job.

In the meantime, to pay him back she said, when Uncle lay a little change down Hosanna would pick it up and save it until it was a dollar. She would exchange it for a paper bill and fold it into the letter going home she got a stamp for once a month. Hosanna thought this would let them know she was the family, too, and her home was where they were. And that she loved them.

t
he hotter New Orleans became that summer, the more Yinyang and Miss Will seemed to get on each other’s nerves. Each seemed to have thoughts about changes in their lives. Yinyang had now determined to leave and go home to Yoville to see if she could be at home at last somewhere.

While Miss Will was thinking of ways to get rid of Yin, Yin was thinking of ways she could leave and take all the things she so loved with her—clothes, jewelry, just things you get used to. One day Miss Will spoke to Yin, “Do you never think of going back to your home to see whatever became of that property that belonged to your family?” She smiled wryly as she placed a particularly juicy piece of candy on her tongue. She was sure Yin had come from sharecroppers or some poor white trash. She never for a moment believed that story Yin told about rich parents. She had seen that birth certificate among Yin’s things when she had gone through them secretly, but even some poor people had birth certificates now.

Yin opened her eyes wide as the words struck her. She covered her shapely legs with the soft, silk dressing gown, unnecessarily, and said
honestly, “Why, I would love to go see about those things!” She smiled brightly at Miss Will, then lied. “But I have hated to think of leaving you! I do not know how long I would have to stay, but whatever I am able to retrieve, I would bring back to you for all the wonderful things you have done for me.” She looked Miss Will directly in the eye as she lied however it was sweetly, “I never want to leave you. I want to give you what is mine. As you have done me.” Yin looked thoughtful. “I remember the house as being huge.… And … I do … believe there is still some … gold there my father told me about.”

Miss Will popped another piece of candy onto her tongue, thinking what a little liar the cur was. “Oh, poot! You don’t have to give me anything. Keep it, my lovely. I have enough. I love being with you just for yourself! You will want your own home someday, here in New Orleans, I hope. Near me. Use it for that.”

Thoughtful again, Yin said, “Perhaps I should go soon. Anything could have happened. You are right! I shall pack and prepare to leave. Let me see, I will pack up most of my things so they will not be in the way … And I will store them until I know when I shall return! Oh! You are so smart to think of everything!” She ran to embrace Miss Will.

Miss Will smiled and hugged Yin back as she thought, “Yes, go. Go! I will always remember your face when you were with that silly, stupid man. You liked it! You are a silly, stupid woman! Yes, go!”

It was not long before all was packed and done. Miss Will wanted to take back the fur coats to hold until Yin “returned.”

“You won’t need these dear, you will be back before winter.” Yin looked at her coats longingly. Instinctively, she reached out for one of her favorites, held it to her so that Miss Will understood that she would not give it up. “Oh, my dear, I will just take this one. One can never tell about the weather, and we must be prepared like you always tell me!”

Miss Will spoke softly, “I have another one, more suited to the country, with a fur collar. You should take that one, I think.”

Yin also spoke softly, “Oh, no, my dear, this is the one I shall take. It pleases me so.” Yin had spent almost three years with Miss Will. In her mind, some of that time was for that coat. When Yin left, she took the coat.

She went to see the young priest. He was having trouble with several other priests because of his honesty and faithfulness. He was sad for
God. He and Yin promised to write, to keep in touch somehow. She left him the name of her home, Yoville.

But listen, Yin had taken everything Paul had said as it was meant that first day they talked, but as time passed, the devil had changed her thoughts into her own interests in another way: she would look out for herself, she would get out of this with something. She could be rich on her own with the gold her father had left behind. Her thoughts did not dwell on God, her thoughts dwelt on material things. Ole Satan held on.

She liked the honesty the priest Paul had given her, she just failed to know such honesty would be so hard to find, would be the only thing that would carry her on, that she would have to hold such honesty to life.

Looking from the back of the train as it pulled away from New Orleans, Yinyang thought of her last years. “Well, New Orleans, you have given me one friend, Paul, and I am leaving him behind. I don’t know what I am going to, but I will never forget you New Orleans, you big, fun-filled bastard!” She laughed. “And I swear, I swear, I will end up with far more than all those lovely, fresh-faced ladies in their finery I saw here! I will, I will!” Oh, Satan was pleased. He loves wild ambition! It so often turns into greed and envy, hate and even murder in some search for satisfaction.

Then. She thought of God in the midst of her laughter and became serious. She thought, “Is He real? I can only lose if I follow that Bible.” Yet? God always hopes, it is written. Yin remembered Paul’s words, “It is your choice and your life. You will be able to blame no one or no thing for your life but yourself.” Yin shook her head to clear it and the thought flew away.

Yinyang settled back in her private room on the train. Everyone thought she was white. There was a young, handsome, jet-black porter that attended to her needs. Yin had never in all her sexual life had a black man that she knew of, though she had heard much about them and been told to avoid them. She smiled to herself, thinking, “White men would rather see a white woman dead than in a black man’s arms.” Yin reached for a magazine, still thinking about sex and love. In fact she had not had a man in these several years. She watched the young porter as he moved gracefully through his duties, she liked his movements, quick and sure. She watched him when he came to make down her bed. She thought, “What have I to lose?”

She asked, “What goes on in these trains on these long traveling nights?”

The porter smiled. “Sleep.”

Yin smiled. “That’s all?”

The porter made a few more deft moves, smoothing the sheets. “Well, I guess it’s just like bein at home for some. You do whatever you feels like.”

Yin opened her expensive suit jacket. “Do you have liquor to sell?”

The porter looked more closely at her. “A person can most always find some liquor.”

Yin stretched her arms and legs as much as possible in the small cabin. “Well … why don’t you see can you find some?” The porter said nothing, wondering just who and what she was.

Yin pursued. “What do you do when you finish helpin everybody to sleep?”

The porter reached her door to leave. “Well, play cards, read, think, whatever is okay to do.”

“Well … why don’t you get the liquor … and come back and have a drink with me?”

The porter just turned and looked at her, this pretty woman who was invitin him to come back … in the night. “Well … I don’t know, Miss.”

“Well, don’t think about it so much. Just do it. I … need to talk to someone … I can relax with.” She smiled up at him, moving her body just so. He stood there a moment, looking at her. She gestured for him to leave. “Go on now, and hurry back.” He left with a frown.

He did come back. She was undressed and in the narrow bed. He did bring the liquor. She paid for it because he asked for the money. They had the drinks. Then he had her. They were tired then, almost falling asleep. But the porter knew his business. He got up and left, wondering about what had just happened to him and why. A new porter was there to help her the next morning. Yin didn’t care, she was glad. She treated the new man as a servant, barely giving him a glance.

Anyway, she was on her way to Yoville. She had saved a nice piece of money. Had a marvelous wardrobe. Her mind was on the nice cache of gold Josephus had left behind, waiting for her at home. The diamond ring hidden there would be worth a lot of money, or she just might keep it. And the girl, her half-sister, Josephus had told her about. And the
land, her land. In Yoville. “Hell!” she thought. “At least I’m not pregnant with Willie’s baby!” She laughed as she looked out of her window at life.

No, it wasn’t going to be Willie’s baby. But, she would be pregnant. She never would know the father’s name. It hadn’t been important enough to ask.

Yin was a young woman on her way home. A few people thought she was Negro, a few people thought she was white. Very few had ever cared what she was inside, except for what was useful to them. What can you know about people? You don’t know enough of time to judge, do you?

w
ashington, D.C. was sweltering hot when Aunty lost her job and came home disgusted, tired and mean. Hosanna was around fourteen years old, and Aunty looked at her as if Hosanna was a grown woman, as though Hosanna was the cause of her losing her job. Aunty went right back out the next morning to seek another job but was unable to find one right away. She was out of work for several weeks. Finally they had to move because Uncle Deacon “couldn’t find any work,” he said. The preacher landlord said, “Sometimes God tests us to see if we are worthy.” He had them evicted. “For your good,” he said.

Put out of even that low place that needed everything, Aunty got way down in her heart, feeling guilty. She did a lot of crying over the sink and into her pillow. Hosanna’s heart needed to love someone and Aunty was her blood. She loved her, when she could, and she felt sorry for her and angry at her, too. She knew that woman, her aunt, knew right from wrong and should not be fool enough to believe her preacher or her husband was doing her right! If grown-ups knew so much about life, why didn’t they do it better!? Hosanna’s young mind was reaching to understand things no one ever talked about. She was building her mind so she’d know how to make decisions. She made up her mind never to
get married … for a long time, that is. She started finding excuses to keep from going to church with Aunty.

They didn’t move far. Couldn’t. Black folk could only live so many places. They moved around the corner. Same apartment, different address, less room. Hosanna’s space was especially cramped. Her bedroom was rolled out at night in what they referred to as the living room. When Hosanna made the mistake of complaining sometimes, Aunty sniffed and said, “I reckon there is more room back there where you come from.” She wiped her nose with a gray, wrinkled handkerchief. “Chile, I’m the only one bringin any money in this house. I ain’t got no help round here. This the bes I can do for you.” Hosanna would bow her head and Aunty would continue fussing at her because she couldn’t fuss at Uncle Deacon. “You young. You eat and sleep and go to school while you here livin under my roof. I bring the clothes off my job so you will have somethin on your back! You cries bout that, too! Either they too small or too large. Or somethin’s wrong wit em!”

With tears in her eyes, Hosanna rushed to explain. “No, Aunty, no. I preciate what you do for me. I’m glad to get em! Just tired of some of them kids laughin at me sometimes.”

Aunty slammed a piece of cold meat brought from her job on the table. “Some kids ain’t got nothin! And you ain’t such a kid no mo! You gettin mighty grown-up. Look at you! Mos a woman! Too old for me to take care for by myself!”