Mama (21 page)

After a week of living among boxes and clothes scattered all around her living room, Mildred and Porky arguing over who had the last drink, Angel and Doll yelling about which TV show to watch, and Money bored with everybody and everything, spending most of his time looking lost and pathetic, Freda decided to lay down her house rules. She sounded exactly like her mama.

"Now look. This is my house and I'm grateful that all of you are here"—she looked at Porky—"well, almost all of you, but all this bickering and screaming and carrying on like slobs is getting on my damn nerves. When I come home from work and school, I'm tired. You guys are eating me out of house and home and I'm spending every dime I have on you as it is. Money, tomorrow I want you to get a paper and start looking for a job. Vacation's over. And Mama, you aren't helpless either. It wouldn't hurt you to look. You guys can stay here until I can find a decent place for you to live, but as long as you're under my roof, you're going to have to act more civilized. Does everybody understand me?"

And each of them, including Mildred, said a low yes.

But nothing changed. By the second week, Freda thought she was going crazy. Maybe having all of them stay with her hadn't been such a bright idea after all. And why did Mildred have to come more than two thousand miles with no money in her pocket?

"Where's all the colored people?" Angel wanted to know.

"How many times am I going to have to tell you? We're black, not colored," Freda said.

"Aw, what difference do it make?" Angel said.

Freda shrugged her shoulders in frustration. Angel and Doll were flipping through magazines looking for new hairstyles. Freda was ironing, and Mildred and Porky had both passed out. No one knew where Money was.

"Don't tell me you haven't seen any black people around here," Freda said. "There's lots of us in this neighborhood."

"Show me where, 'cause all I've seen are white people and Chinese people."

"What do you have against white and Chinese people?"

"Nothing, but I just like colored people better."

"Doll," Freda said, "when are you going to take those rollers out of your hair? You've had 'em in for three days now."

"When I go somewhere. Everything out here is so expensive. You can't do nothing if you ain't got no money, can you?"

"That's true anywhere," Freda said.

"No it ain't. At home we didn't never have no money and we did a lot of things."

"Name one."

"We went over to people's houses and ice-skating and—"

"You've only been here a week and a half. How do you expect to go visiting when you don't know anybody yet?"

"Like I said. I'll take these rollers out when I go somewhere."

Freda was coming home from work when she noticed the U-Haul wasn't parked outside her building, at least it wasn't in the same spot it had been parked in for the past two weeks.

"Mama, did somebody move the truck?" she asked when she got upstairs.

"What you mean, did somebody move the truck? It's not outside? That truck ain't outside? I know you lying," Mildred said, getting up from the couch and walking over to the window. "Please tell me you lying, Freda."

"What happened to it?" Freda asked. She knew something was fishy. "What's going on, Mama?"

"Shit. I told them I was going to Detroit. You know how much it would'a cost if I had'a told them we was coming way out here? I'd still be sitting in that damn town right now. Shit, I never thought this would happen."

Freda picked up the telephone and dialed the nearest U-Haul company and asked them what had happened. They told her they had the truck and wouldn't release it or its contents without a certified check for $328. Mildred was even more hysterical after Freda told her that.

"Shut up, would you, Mama? When are you gonna learn that you can't get away with trying to be so slick all the time? Shit, sometimes it pays to tell the truth and do things right for a change."

"You can stop all that damn cussing and telling me what to do. I'm still your mama." Mildred started to cry. She didn't know what they were going to do. We shouldn't have come out here, she thought. I'm always trying to be so quick, and now look.

"Stop crying, would you? Don't worry, I'll think of something, 'cause y'all getting out of here if I have to pay for it myself. I'm not gonna let y'all put me in the nut house," Freda said.

The next day Freda didn't go to work. She went to her bank and applied for a personal loan for seven hundred dollars. She withdrew all but one hundred of the five hundred dollars she now had in her savings account. Three days later her loan was approved and in the meantime she had dragged Mildred and the girls on the bus to an area called the "Jungle," where a lot of black people lived. Freda found them a three-bedroom apartment, complete with swimming pool.

She handed Mildred's new landlord a money order for $550, took a certified check to the U-Haul company, and gave Mildred the rest after they put Porky on a bus back to Point Haven. That night, sitting alone in her apartment for the first time in three weeks, Freda pulled a joint of Colombian grass from a shoe box top beneath the couch and smoked the whole thing. She ate two bowls of strawberry ice cream and fell asleep, alone, in her own bed. It was nice.

Life became simple again, especially since her family was a forty-five-minute bus ride away. Freda had planned it like that. It was true that she loved every single one of them, but she was also glad to see them leave. Besides, they thought they were in seventh heaven after they moved into that building. There were blue and red lights surrounding the pool, and big banana plants, and Angel and Doll were going to an all-black high school, which thrilled them. Teenage boys hovered around Mildred's door and the phone was always ringing off the hook. Mildred found her neighbors to be quite friendly, and to her surprise they weren't even nosy. This was nothing like the projects, she thought, although Mildred didn't know just how long she'd last, living in an apartment. She already missed working in her garden.

Money didn't like LA at all. He didn't even try to find a job. He had told Freda that LA was a little too sophisticated for him. He couldn't get used to walking up and down the streets and nobody knew who he was. The real reason he didn't like LA was because it was harder for him to find dope. Heroin wasn't that popular in Los Angeles, and it wasn't until they had moved to the Jungle that Freda realized all but two of her Darvons were missing. She didn't bother mentioning it to him. She was tired of talking to Money about his problems.

Mildred was having a pretty rough time finding a job. Seemed like every ad in the paper called for some kind of expertise, the one thing she didn't have. There were no factories in Los Angeles—at least they weren't advertised in the paper—and when Mildred did see one, it was way out in the San Fernando Valley. She'd need a car to get out there but she decided to keep it in mind for the future. She had driven out to the Valley with Phyllis once, and was impressed by the nice homes that black people owned. Mildred had told herself that when she got on her feet, that's where she wanted to live. But today was today, so she did the most sensible thing to help her get through tomorrow. She signed up for aid at the county welfare office.

To help lower her expenses, Mildred tried to talk Freda into moving in with them, but Freda told her she was applying to Stanford University and most likely would be leaving Los Angeles.

"But you just got here."

"I've been here three years, Mama."

"Well,
we
just got here."

"So?"

"What you mean, so?"

"Mama, look. They've got a special minority program at Stanford, and it's one of the top universities in the United States. I've got the grades and I can't pass up an opportunity like this. They might give me a grant and pay my tuition too, if I get in."

"Where is this Stanford place?"

"It's in Palo Alto."

"That ain't telling me nothing."

"You know where San Francisco is, don't you? It's near there."

"All the way up there? That's at least a seven-hour drive from here, ain't it?"

"No, it's really six, but it's only an hour by plane."

"Is this how you gon' spend the rest of your life? Just hopping around from place to place?"

"Mama, please. I'm going to go to college, it's not the same thing."

"Yeah, I wanna know how you expect to find a husband when you can't sit still."

Freda just shook her head.

In April she got her acceptance letter and couldn't wait to move up north.

Mildred was happy and disappointed, again. "I don't know why you didn't thank about going to UCLA. They got all kinds of smart basketball players down here. That's what you should'a been thanking about, finding you somebody with some brains in his head and some money in his pocket. You be twenty-two before you know it, girl, and all the education in the world ain't gon' make no babies or make you feel good at night. Keep that in mind when you up there studying."

Mildred was sitting by the swimming pool in her shorts. The sun sure felt good on her legs. She was feeling pretty good about life in general. Freda loved it up there in Northern California and was doing well in school. Money had gone back to Point Haven and, as far as Mildred knew, hadn't been in any trouble. Bootsey was pregnant. Angel had gotten so involved in high school politics that she'd been elected class president, and Doll was named the prettiest girl in the tenth grade. Mildred's bills were pretty much paid. She hadn't taken a nerve pill since she didn't know when, and even though she hadn't met that perfect somebody yet, right now this water was giving her all she needed. A little cooling off.

"Hi, Milly," her neighbor, Sheila, called out. She had just had a baby and was still walking around like she was nine months pregnant.

"Hi, girl. What you know good?"

"I want to show you something. Me and William and the baby is moving. Got us a house in the Valley, on this special program for low-income families. You gotta check it out, Milly, 'cause I know you qualify. You still on the county, ain't you?"

"You better believe it, sister. I can't find no job out here to save my life. Y'all got a house, huh?"

"Yep, and look at this." Sheila showed Mildred the brochure that spelled out all the details. All Mildred needed was five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars. For a whole complete house?

She used her next two checks for the down payment.

Thirteen

"O
UCH
! Damn, Freda. Take it easy. What you trying to do, pull my brains out?"

"Well, be still, would you? You're the one who's trying to be so cute. You gotta pay the price if you want to look good. I told you it would hurt. Now be still." Freda pulled Mildred's head back, spit on her index finger, then smeared it across Mildred's eyebrows to keep them moist, even though she had already slicked them down with Vaseline.

Mildred had finally cornered her to make sure she got her eyebrows plucked this time. It was Angel's high school graduation, and she had told Freda she wanted to look as glamorous as possible. "There could be some nice divorcés there, you know. These days, by the time kids get to college, most likely the mama and daddy ain't together no more."

"Open your eyes and look up," Freda told her. She was staring at her mother's face as if it were her own creation.

"I know you thank you slick, Freda, but I saw you hiding them earrings with that big blue rock in 'em. Ouch! Don't worry, I don't want 'em, I just want to wear 'em today. Is that that turquoise stuff?"

"Yes, and don't move." Freda raced to the bathroom and brought back the plastic bag. She pulled out the silver and turquoise earrings. "Here," she said, handing them to Mildred, "but I need them back." Mildred sat them on the table and leaned her head back like she was in a dentist's chair.

Freda couldn't even count the number of earrings and bras she'd already given her mother. She knew how good Mildred was at conning her out of the things' she cherished most. But she wasn't parting with these earrings.

Since Freda had moved, they had still seen a lot of each other. Some weekends, she would drive down to the Valley in the car Mildred had bought her with part of her settlement money. Last October, some drunk man had hit Mildred while she was crossing the street in front of the drug store. She had suffered a pinched nerve in her neck, and thanks to the advice of her friends, was awarded four thousand dollars for the discomfort and aggravation. Mildred paid off a lot of bills, got the shutters painted, the front door sanded and stained, landscaped the front yard, and bought Freda a used car. She would've bought herself one, but driving in a big city made Mildred nervous, plus she didn't have a driver's license any more.

They'd been living out in the Valley, in this olive-green house, for almost a year now. There were rose bushes and banana plants and palm trees and an oval swimming pool in the back yard and a panoramic view of the mountains. Mildred finally felt like she had moved up in the world.

A lot of times Freda's friends would drive the thirty-two miles from LA to see her when she came down, and sometimes even when she wasn't there they'd still come to visit Mildred. They envied Freda for having such a down-to-earth mother. Mildred was like their surrogate mom. She made them feel at home. She let them smoke their reefer in peace in the back yard, and in exchange for Mildred's hospitality they usually supplied her with liquor. Every holiday, they showed up with boxes of expensive Scotch or sealed envelopes of money for her. They had migrated to LA from small towns all over the United States to escape the mundane life at home and get an education.

When Freda came to visit, she usually spent half the day lying by the pool, drinking gold tequila, smoking cigarettes, and rubbing cocoa butter all over her skin until she looked like fresh baked bread. After she'd been assigned to read fourteen books in fourteen weeks, she gave up marijuana. Figured it was time to start remembering things for a change.