Juneteenth (30 page)

So she keeps on asking me what I do to get her washing so white, Mrs. Proctor said, and I keep telling her I didn’t do nothing but soak ’em and boil ’em and rub ’em and blue ’em and rinse ’em and starch ’em and iron ’em, but she never believed me. Said, Julia,
Nobody
does clothes like you do. The others don’t get them so white and clean so you have got to have some secret. Oh, yes, Julia, you have a trick, I just know you have. So finally, girl, I gets tired and the next time she asked me I said, Well, Miz Simmons, you keep on asking
me so I guess I have to tell you, but first you haveta promise me that you won’t tell nobody. And she said, Oh I promise, you just tell me what you do. Ho ho! So I said, well, Miz Simmons, it’s like this, after I done washed the clothes and everything I adds a few drops of coal oil in the last rinse water.

Girl, she slapped her hands and almost turned a flip. Talking about, I knew it! And she said, Is that all? And I said, Yessum, that’s it and please don’t forget that you promised you wouldn’t tell anybody. Oh no, I won’t tell, she said. But I just
knew
that you had a secret, because no one could do the clothes the way you do with just plain soap and water. So girl, I thought maybe now she’d let me alone and be satisfied, because you see, I knew that if I didn’t tell her
something
pretty soon she was going to fire me.

So how’d it work out, Body’s mother said.

Wait, Mrs. Proctor said. The next week I picked up her laundry and she was still talking about it. Said: Julia, you sure are a sly one. But you didn’t fool me, because I knew you had some special secret for getting my clothes so clean. And I said, Yessum, I don’t do it for everybody but I know how particular you all are and all like that. And she said, Yes that’s right and it just proves that if you insist on getting the best you’ll get it. And I said, Yessum, that sure is the truth.

Body’s mother laughed. Girl, you oughtn’t to told that woman that stuff.

Don’t I know it? Mrs. Proctor said. It was wrong. Because as I was luggin’ those clothes of her’n home something way back in the rear of my mind hunched me. It said: Girl, maybe you wasn’t so smart in telling that woman that lie ’cause you know she’s a fool—but I forgot about it. Well suh, I did her laundry just like I always done it and when I went to deliver it there she was, waiting for me—and I could tell from the way her face was all screwed up like
she was taking a dose of Black Draught that I was in trouble. Said, Julia, I want you to be a little more careful when you do the wash this time. And I said, What’s wrong, Miz Simmons, wasn’t the clothes clean? She said, Oh yes, they was clean all right. But you didn’t rinse them enough and you put in a bit too much of that coal oil. Last night when he got home, Mr. Simmons complained that he could smell it in his shirts.

Oh, oh, Body’s mother said.

Mrs. Proctor said: Well, girl, I liked to bust. I said, I knew it, I knew it! You been snooping around for something to criticize about my work. Well now you have gone and done it and I’m here to tell you that you just been telling a big ole coal oil lie because I never put a thing in those clothes but plenty of soap and water and elbow grease. Just like that.

And what’d she say then?

Say? What could she say? She stomped out of there and slammed the door. Stayed a while and then, girl, she come back with her eyes all red and
fired
me! The ole sour fool!

Their voices ripped out and rose high above me as they laughed and I closed my eyes seeing the purple shadows dancing behind my lids as I held my mouth to keep my laughter in. I could hear it wheezing and burbling in my stomach. It was hard to hold and then when it stopped, their voices were low and confidential….

 … You’d think that with all her money and everything a woman like that wouldn’t even know we was in the world, wouldn’t you girl? Body’s mother said.

Sho would, Mrs. Proctor said, but that ain’t the way it seems to work. Seems like they can’t be happy unless they know we’re having a hard time. Some folks just wants it all, the prizes of this world and God’s own anointed. It’s outrageous when you think about it. Imagine, coming into the meeting and trying to snatch Revern’
Bliss out of the Lord’s own design. She’s going to interrupt the
Resurrection of the spirit from the flesh!
Next thing you know she be out there in her petticoat telling the Mississippi River to stand still. I tell you that woman is what they call
arragant
, girl. She so proud she’s like a person who done drunk so much he’s got the blind staggers….

You telling me! But she’s always cutting up in some fashion so I guess that sooner or later she had to get around to us. But to interfere with the Lord’s …

Girl, Mrs. Proctor said, I saw her one morning just last week. She was riding one of those fine horses they have out there and she’s acting like she was a Kentucky woman, or maybe a Virginian. One of those F.F.V.’s as they call them. Up on that hoss’s back wearing black clothes with a long skirt and one of those fancy sidesaddles but riding a-straddle that hoss like a man in full, and with a derby hat with a white feather in it on her head. Early in the morning too, Lord. I was on my way to deliver some clothes and here she come galloping past me so fast I swear it liked to sucked all the air from round me. Had me suspended there like a yolk in the middle of an egg. It went SWOSH! just like a freight train passing a tramp and that hoss was steaming and lathering like he been racing five miles at top speed. And in this weather too. You shoulda seen it, girl. I whirled around to look and there she went with that red hair streaming back from under that derby. Done almost knocked me down now but when she went past with that wild look on her face it’s like she ain’t seen me.

It’s a sin and a shame, Body’s mother said. You’d think that she’d at least respect how much labor and pain goes into keeping her garments clean. Washerwomen have rheumatism like a horse has galls.

Yes, and this is one who knows it, Mrs. Proctor said. But girl, that woman’s a fool, that’s the most Christian thing you can say about
her. It ain’t as if she was the mean kind who’d run a person down just for fun or to see you jump and get scaird,
she just naturally don’t see nobody
.

That might be true, Body’s mother said, but she saw Revern’ Bliss, all right. Now just why would she decide to come out there and break up our meeting?

Crazy, girl! That’s all there is to it, the woman’s crazy and while we sitting here talking between ourselfs we might as well go ahead and admit it. You and me don’t have to deny the truth when we talking between ourselfs. Rich and white though she be, the po’ thing’s nuts.

No, no, no, she’s my mother
, my mind said and I lay rigid, listening.

I don’t know, Body’s mother said, Maybe she is and maybe she ain’t. Maybe she just knew she could get away with it and went on and did it.

You mean she started to do it but she didn’t count on us women.… Neither on the outrage of the Lord.

That’s right, she didn’t take the child but she busted up the meeting. She still got no regard for other folks but this time
she went too far
. She’s strong-willed even for a high-tone white woman, girl. Let me tell you something! One day I was out there to see Irene and just as I got around in the back I heard all this shooting and yelling and what do I see? Over there down where the grass runs down to the lake she’s got a half-dozen or so little black boys and has them pitching up those round things rich white folks shoot at all the time when they ain’t shooting partridges or doves, and girl, I tell you, it was something to
see
. Girl, she’s got them standing in a big half-circle and she’s yelling at first one and then the other to sail those things up in the air and
bang!
she’s shooting them down just—

WHO? NOT THOSE CHILDREN?

No,
noo
, girl, those clay birds.

Thank goodness, that’s what I thought, but with her you can’t be too sure.

I know, Body’s mother said. But girl, you never saw such a sight. She’s yelling and those little boys are raring back and flinging those round black things into the air with all their might, and her dancing from side to side with that shotgun and busting them to dust. And as fast as she empties one gun here comes another little boy running up with a fresh one all loaded, and
bang! bang! bang!
she’s busting ’em again. I stood there with my mouth open trying to take it all in and looking to see if Body was amongst those boys—thank God he wasn’t, because the way she looked, with her red hair all wild and wearing pants and some kind of coat with leather patches on the shoulder she’s liable to—

Girl, Mrs. Proctor said, that was a shooting jacket.

A
shooting
jacket?

Mrs. Proctor laughed a high falsetto ripple. Why sho, girl. You know these rich folks have a different set of clothes for everything they do. They have tea gowns for drinking tea, cocktail dresses for drinking their gin and whiskey,
ball
gowns for doing what they call dancing. Yes! And riding habits, then they got their riding habits on—that’s what she was wearing when she almost run me down. Then they even have dressing gowns for wearing when they’re putting on their other clothes.

Oh yes? Body’s mother said. Well, I guess they have to have
something
to do to take up all the time they have on their hands. But tell me something—

What’s that?

What was the red thing she was wearing when she tried to take our little preacher?

Well, Mrs. Proctor said, without making a joke about something religious I’d say maybe it was a maternity dress….

If it was, Body’s mother said, she was dressed for the wrong occasion. She surely was. Anyway, girl, she was really shooting that day. Jesse James couldn’t have done no better. She ain’t hardly missed a one. And if one of those children didn’t pitch in time to suit her she’d cuss him for a little gingersnap bastard and the rest of them would just laugh. Oh, but it made me mad, hearing her abuse those children like that. Not that it seemed to bother those little boys though. In fact, when she cussed one of ’em he just laughed and sassed her right back. Said, Miss Lor, don’t come blaming me ’cause you cain’t shoot a shotgun. You missed that bird a country mile….

And what happened then? Mrs. Proctor said.

Something crazy just like always with her. She started to laughing like a panther and gave out one of those rebel yells. Said, Enloe, you
are
a sassy little blue-gummed bastard, but if I miss the next twenty birds I’ll have Alberta freeze you a gallon of ice cream!

Now you see what I mean: That woman is dangerous! You take that boy Enloe, she oughtn’t to treat him that way, because he’s liable to pull that with some
other
white woman and git hisself kilt.

You’re right, and somebody had better speak to his mama about him. And that’s the truth. Only when children reach the size of those boys they usually know when they dealing with a fool. But it’s her I’m worried about. Anybody who plays around with the Lord’s work that way is heading for trouble. In fact, that po’ woman is
already
in trouble and I been thinking a heap about what she did. But did it occur to you that she might really
be
Revern’ Bliss’s mother?

Who, a child like that, girl? No!

She
said
he was hers, didn’t she?

She surely did, wasn’t I listening like everybody else? But how is a woman like that going to be
his
mamma? It would’ve made more sense if she’d a claimed Jack Johnson and all those white wives of his
and his uncles and cousins too. How she going to be that child’s mamma even in a dream
I
simply can’t see.

How!
Are you asking me? Man is born of woman, and skinny as she is she still appears to have all the equipment. Besides, does anybody know who his mamma is?

No, they don’t; less’n it’s Revern’ and he ain’t said. But remember now, Revern’
brought
that child here with him so he can’t be from around here anywhere….

And how do you know that? Half the devilment in this country caint be located on account of it’s somewhere in between black and white and covered up with bedclothes in the dark.

That’s the truth—but, girl, Revern’ ain’t no fool! He wouldn’t bring that baby back here if that was the case. Not even if he’d found him in a grocery basket with a note saying the child was a present from Pharaoh’s favorite daughter. Besides, that woman would have to either be drunk or out of her mind to claim him anyway. And you know that while a white man might recognize his black bastards once in a while, if they turn out
white
enough, and if he’s stuck tight enough to the mother, he might even send them up north to go to school—but who in this lowdown South ever heard of a white
woman
claiming anything a black man had something to do with?

Yes, that’s true, Mrs. Proctor said, ’cept he don’t show no sign in his skin or hair or features, only in his talking. But this here ain’t no ordinary chile and everything has its first time to happen. Besides, there’s quite a few of them who have turned their heads and made their sweet-talking motions as if to say, “Come on, mister nigger, here’s my peaches—you can shake my tree if you man enough or crazy enough to take the consequences.” And as you well know, some of ours is both man enough and crazy enough and prideless enough to take hold to the branch and swing the dickens out of it—even knowing that if they git caught she gon’ scream and swear he stole her.

Yes, I know all that. And as Mamma told me long ago, all those who cries denied in darkness ain’t black, and a woman’s lot is a woman’s lot from the commencing of her flow on. It sure does make you wonder. Still, a woman like that is apt to do what she did just for the notoriety and the scandal for the rest of her own folks. But what can you expect from somebody who got started out wrong like she done?

What you mean? Mrs. Proctor said. Who?