Mama (13 page)

Freda started to cry. "What are you, some kind of whore or something?"

Mildred went to jump out of the bed, but Billy grabbed her. "Leave her alone, Mildred," he said, "she got a right to be mad. She's coming, Freda."

Mildred turned to him, furious. "And you shut up, blackie. Freda, I'm gon' tell you once, and I'm not gon' tell you again. Get your ass back down those steps."

Freda inhaled as if she were gasping for breath, unable to stop her tears. She exhaled and stormed out of the room.

In the morning, she rolled her eyes at Mildred and would not look her in the face.

"So, now you know," Mildred said.

"Now I know what?" Freda huffed. "That you like young boys?"

"If you don't watch your mouth, I'll smack that smirk off of it. Now sit down."

"I don't want to sit down."

"I said sit your ass down."

Freda flopped lazily into a chair.

"Now, let me tell you something, sister. Since you so damn grown and you want to see so much and you think you can just walk in my bedroom and check up on me when you get good and damn ready. Let me tell you what it's been like for your mama to lay in that cold-ass bed every night and all I do is thank about what's gon' be here for the kids to eat tomorrow. What
y'all
need. How much I gotta hustle and work my knuckles loose for
y'all.
I ain't spent an ounce of energy or ten damn dollars on Mildred since I don't know when. And who worries about Mildred? Huh? Nobody! You know who kisses and comforts me when I need it? No damn body, not one goddamn soul!"

Mildred slung her cup on the table and poured hot water into it. Freda was scared she might sling it at her, so she inched away a little.

"One day," Mildred went on, lowering the tone of her voice, "you might understand just what it means to need somebody—no—what it means to need a man. And when you do, maybe you'll understand that age ain't got a damn thang to do with it. Not one damn thang. And I'ma tell you another thang, since you sitting here. I like that man upstairs. And I'm gon' keep on liking him and keep on sleeping with him and I don't care if you don't like it. I don't give a damn who don't like it."

Freda sat there fuming, praying the other kids weren't listening, but they were busy watching "Woody Woodpecker." She sat there staring at her mama like she was beyond disgust.

"You mean to tell me that you really like him, Mama?"

"Yes, I do. And he likes me."

"But Mama, he's young enough to be
my
boyfriend. What Will people say?"

"One day, when you get older, you gon' realize that you have to stop worrying about what people thank about you and what they gon' say about you 'cause they gon' talk about you anyway, don't make no difference what you do. Fuck 'em. Some of these ill-bred niggahs in the streets ain't worth ten cents, and this one, at least he got a good job at Chrysler's and he makes me feel like a woman. Do you know how long it's been since I felt good? Huh?" Mildred reached over and squeezed Freda's cheeks between her strong fingers until they pushed up against Freda's nose.

Mildred was crying and Freda couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Mildred cry. Never.

"I guess I can try to understand," Freda said.

Mildred loosened her grip and stepped back. "Just treat him nice and make sure you talk to them kids so they know what's going on, you understand me?"

"Yes, Mama, I understand you. Can I go now?"

"Yeah, get on out of here," she said, sipping on the hot water that she had forgotten to put the coffee into.

Billy took some getting used to, but Freda tried her best to make the other kids understand what "needs" were all about.

"Mama is lonely. Hard up, really, which just means she needs a boyfriend, especially at night. And we ain't the kind of company she needs all the time. We can't do everything for her and she feels that old black Billy is giving her whatever it is that she wasn't getting before. Y'all understand?"

They didn't, really. So they tried to drive Billy away by treating him badly and making him feel like a damn fool, but it didn't work. He was so nice and spent so much money on them and let them play all of his records and after Mildred married him he was more like a big brother than a stepfather.

The whole town was talking about it, but Mildred ignored them. She held her head just as high as she always had, and Curly Mae was tickled about the whole thang. "Sis'-n-law, he must be a good piece'a ass, huh? All young and spunky and everythang. Ain't shriveled up yet. I bet he can go all night. Wheweee."

"Chile, a man is a man, and a woman is a woman. You know that. I ain't had a man that made me feel this good since Spooky Cooper, and honey, this man wakes up spots in me I thought was long dead."

Curly grabbed her stomach just thinking about it.

And like any young hot-in-the-ass man in his right mind who got swept away by a woman full of experience and twelve years older than he was and who knew how to move her ass like a figure eight and swirl it around like a spinning top in slow motion until he felt close to cardiovascular arrest, the reality of five kids staring him in the face and eating up his paycheck and keeping him constant company when Mildred wasn't there became a little much. When he told them to do something, all they would say was, "Aw, shut up, Billy. You ain't our daddy, you ain't even old enough to be our daddy." Then Billy would laugh and say, "That's for damn sure," and forget about it.

Joy Williams, the same girl who had helped Freda puff on her first cigarette and who lived down the street, was also one of those girls who had crept up the back steps to Billy's room before Mildred had ever set foot in it. And there was something about Billy's blood that made him whorish. He started creeping with Joy when the pressures of marriage and his instant family began to make him feel like he was being swallowed up whole. He felt like he'd aged ten or fifteen years in just the few months that he and Mildred had been married. What did I get myself into? he kept asking himself over and over, and there was bony Joy, seventeen years old, single, with no dependents, no rent, no gas bill, no light bill, and so naturally Mildred's spell started slowly then quickly wearing off. He finally told Mildred that he had had second thoughts about married life and that it was more, much more than he had bargained for, and though there were no doubts in his mind that he loved her, he just couldn't get a handle on all this responsibility. He asked Mildred if she understood where he was comin' from.

"It's that little cripple-looking colt you been fuckin', ain't it?" she asked him.

"No, who you mean?"

"You know damn well who I'm talking about, fool. The one that look like she dying of malnutrition and got polio and enough knees to start a damn forest fire when she walk. Her."

"No, it ain't her, Mildred. I love you and I really like your kids, but I don't feel right trying to be their daddy. Please try to understand. Maybe in five or ten years I'll be ready, but this happened too fast for me."

"Well, go on and leave, motherfucker, but I'll tell you something. When you come crawling back here don't think I'ma be sitting here waiting for you. My behind'll be sweet for a long long time. Maybe one day I'll meet me a real man who knows how to handle it!"

His feelings were hurt but he packed all of his clothes the same night anyway and returned to what Mildred called his free-flowing, free-fucking life that he had found so habit-forming. Billy Callahan moved all the way up to the North End where most likely he would never run into Mildred. Which was a good thing.

Nine

I
T GOES WITHOUT SAYING
that your friends are usually the first to discuss your personal affairs behind your back, particularly in a town like Point Haven, where there was nothing better to talk about over a cup of coffee or a bottle of whiskey in the afternoon, especially if it was raining so hard you couldn't go directly to the source or snowing so bad it wasn't worth putting your boots and gloves on. Mildred's friends thought they had the up-to-the-minute scoop on her. The truth of the matter was, they really couldn't figure out where she got her ability to stay above water.

"Don't you think Mildred cusses too much in front of those kids?" Faye Love asked.

"Honey, she needs to watch more than her mouth, and not just in front of those kids," Willa drawled. "They repeat thangs and one day they gon' repeat the wrong thang and Mildred gon' get her feelings hurt bad."

Janey Pearl put in her two cents. "Chile, them kids gon' be all messed up, just like the rest of them sorry Peacocks, and if they amount to anything, it'll be a miracle before God."

"And since her and Crook split up, has she had enough men running in and out of her house? And husbands? Honey, her and Elizabeth Taylor is running a close race, don't y'all think so?" Bonita laughed. Then they all laughed.

"Speaking of houses, girl," Faye Love said, "that place she just moved into on Thirtieth Street should'a been condemned years ago. But then when you can't keep no man, what you supposed to do? That last boy she married done walked out on her. Mildred's behind probably dried up faster than she thought. Hell, she done had five kids, what she expect? And old pitiful-ass Rufus, he was innocent as a flea. Mildred just abused him. Made the man start hitting the bottle again. Rufus had been so mellow up till the time he married her."

"And Spooky is another story altogether." Bonita eyed Faye Love out the corner of her eye.

Most of the time these women were half drunk by the time they'd finished with one person's business for the day, and once in a while the word would get back to Mildred. And if she had one of her nerve pills in her and more than three beers, which she had grown accustomed to these days, Mildred would call up Faye Love, who she knew was the instigator. "These is
my
kids," she would say, "and this ain't half the shit they gon' see in this world, so they might as well find out from me now what's going on out there before some ignorant ass in the streets gives it to 'em wrong and then they'll really end up catching bell. I don't want my kids growing up all ass backward and stupid and ignorant like some of these ill-bred heathens running around in the streets. I ain't mentioning no names, you understand, but I don't have no stupid kids. They get As and Bs on they report cards. They clean, well-mannered, and they know how to thank for they damn self. I give 'em that much credit."

And everything Mildred said was true, which was what disturbed her friends most. Bonita Bell's son, B-Bunny, was in and out of the detention home. And just last week, he'd been caught stealing a vinyl jacket, some tennis shoes that didn't fit any of his six sisters and brothers, and ten packages of Kit-Kats from K-Mart. Faye Love's oldest daughter, who was the same age as Freda, had just had a baby and dropped out of the tenth grade. And two of Janey Pearl's three were in the "slow" class. But Mildred never said anything about their kids because, she figured, where the hell would it get her?

But they were right about the house on Thirtieth Street. It
was
raggedy. Mildred knew it, and so did the kids. They were embarrassed by it. But they also knew she was doing the best she could since the time had run out in Baby Frank's house and the projects still weren't finished. Besides that, Mildred had to pay for the divorce. The kids told their friends the reason the front of the house was held up by two-by-fours was because they were getting the front porch remodeled. There
was
no front porch, and there would be no front porch, but since there were so many other things wrong
inside
the house, they defended the first thing a visitor would see.

When Prest-o-Lite laid her off, Mildred's attitude changed. She didn't even bother to look for another job. She went straight to the welfare office and applied without so much as a thought. Her nerves were as thin as tissue paper, and now she was taking two yellow pills—ten milligrams—at a time instead of one because she couldn't feel one any more. Even when the lights got cut off, it didn't seem to faze her. "Fuck it, they gon' be off till I get my check. Here, boy," she said, handing Money two dollars, "go down to the A&P and get some candles. Steal 'em if you want to, I don't give a damn."

The kids worried about her but dismissed it as a phase Mildred was going through. To be on the safe side, they tried to do as much as they could to make things easier. They told her they could live without lights. Wasn't no big deal. Everybody had their lights and gas cut off at some point. They kept the house clean and stayed out of her way.

She was sitting at the dining room table when the insurance man drove up. Mildred had dodged him for the last four weeks. "Tell him I ain't home," she told Freda, and went to hide in the bedroom. Freda tried to lie with a straight face. "My mama ain't home, but she said come back next week and she'll pay you for the back premiums. She know how much she owe."

"But she said that last time, sweetheart."

"I ain't your sweetheart, and I said my mama ain't home, now come back next week or I'll sick that dog on you," she said, pointing to Prince. He was getting old, but he still growled when he heard the word "sick."

***

Freda had started babysitting for one of the Wigginses' daughters who now had two kids of her own. This was the same family she had planned to stay with when they were going to move to Arizona. She usually made anywhere from four to six dollars, which she would give to Mildred to buy food, except every now and then she'd put a dollar or two on a pair of $6.99 shoes or a Jonathan Logan double-knit dress downtown at Sperry's.

In the winter, Money shoveled snow to help out, and lots of times he'd come home long after dark with his hands almost frozen. In the fall, he raked leaves. He always brought home a can of pork-n-beans, some hot dogs, a loaf of white bread, cookies, and Kool-Aid. Whatever money was left over he gave to Mildred.

One day Mildred was silently watching Freda teach Money how to slow-dance. She suddenly got a startled look on her face. Both of them were taller than she was. These were her babies. Would always be her babies. Each time she entertained the thought that one day soon both of them would be adults, it felt like jolts of electricity passed through her. But right now all of her children needed her, she thought, would probably always need her for something. And Mildred didn't mind. At this point they seemed like the only ones in the world who did.