Mom & Me & Mom (14 page)

The woman said, “You’re talking!”

“Yes, I am. I’m speaking in English but I do speak some Swedish and I also listen.”

She asked, “Can you hear me?”

I said, “Yes, of course.”

She said, “But how did you get on the plane?”

“I bought the tickets.”

She said, “But you’re speaking Swedish. Are you Swedish?”

I said, “Not only am I an African American, but so is my mother. No, we’re not Swedish.” We were asked to line up, then board a bus that would take us to our hotel on the Left Bank.

By the time we arrived there, the deaf people knew very well the two black ladies did not speak sign language. The hotel clerk spoke to us in French. Fortunately, my French was good enough. We were given rooms and told to return in the evening for wine before dinner, which was included in our ticket.

We had such a marvelous time in Paris that we extended our stay by a week. I rented an apartment from a woman I knew. It seemed to have a beautifully
attended room, with a loft that could be seen from below. A single bed was visible, which was obviously where Mother and I would sleep.

My mother sat smiling. She didn’t speak French. When the new landlady prepared to leave, Mother whispered, “Where is the toilet? It’s a beautiful apartment but isn’t there a toilet?”

So I asked my acquaintance where the toilet was. She walked to the living room, bent down, took a hook that that was nearly hidden there in the rug, and pulled. A large piece of the floor was raised and we saw a ladder. There at the bottom was a wonderful large kitchen and a beautiful bathroom.

My mother said, “Now, now, baby, you’ve got one on me.”

My mother’s gifts of courage to me were both large and small. The latter are woven so subtly into the fabric of my psyche that I can hardly distinguish where she stops and I begin.

The large lessons are highlighted in my memory like Technicolor stars in a midnight sky.

I met loves and lost loves. I dared to travel to Africa to allow my son to finish high school in Cairo, Egypt. I lived with a South African freedom fighter whom I met when he was at United Nations petitioning for an end to apartheid in South Africa.

We both tried to make our relationship firm and sturdy. For a while our attempts were successful. When our attempts failed, I took my son to Ghana and the freedom fighter returned to southern Africa. Guy entered the University of Ghana.

My mother wrote to me and said, “Airplanes leave here every day for Africa. If you need me, I will come.” Her love and support encouraged me to dare to live my life with pizzazz.

“This last husband of Mom’s was my favorite. We were made for each other. He had never had a daughter and I had not known a father’s care, advice, and protection since my teens.”

(Vivian Baxter with her husband, Nollege Wilburn)

I met men, some of whom I loved and trusted. When the last lover proved to be unfaithful, I was devastated. I believed our relationship had been made in heaven, with thousands of baby angels dancing on the head of a pin. The dismay that flooded my heart caused me to move from my home in Ghana to North Carolina.

I was offered a lifetime professorship at Wake Forest University as Reynolds Professor of American Studies. I thanked the administration and accepted the invitation. I would teach for one year and if I liked it, I would teach a second year. I found after teaching one year that I had misunderstood my calling.

I had thought that I was a writer who could teach. I found to my surprise that I was actually a teacher who could write. I settled in at Wake Forest to be a teacher for the rest of my life.

My mother complimented me on my decision and said I would do wonders.

I sat in the beauty salon having my hair cut and curled. The general conversation was typical of black
beauty salons. “Are you crazy?” asked a group of black women.

One woman said in a complaining voice, “I don’t think anything is wrong with old folks having sex. It is just that the idea is sad.”

“Old folks look sad having sex? Who told you that lie?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Another woman waited until the clamor had subsided and asked sweetly, “What do you think your mommy and daddy did after you were born? They stopped doing the do?”

The whiner reacted petulantly. “You don’t have to be nasty.” The statement brought howls of derision.

“Girl, you are sick.”

“Get a grip.”

Then the oldest woman in the room said, “Honey, tired don’t mean lazy, and every goodbye ain’t gone.”

I was reminded of my mother when she was seventy-four. She lived in Stockton, California, with my fourth stepfather, whom she called her greatest love. He was recovering from a mild stroke. Her telephone voice clearly told me how upset she was. “Baby. Baby, I’ve waited as long as I could before bothering you. But things have gone on too long. Much too long.”

I made my voice just as soft as hers had been hard. “Mom, what’s the matter?”

Although I now lived in North Carolina, I felt as close as the telephone, airlines, and credit cards allowed me to be.

“It’s your papa. If you don’t talk to him, I’m going to put his butt out; out of this house. I’ll put his butt on the street.”

This last husband of Mom’s was my favorite. We were made for each other. He had never had a daughter and I had not known a father’s care, advice, and protection since my teens.

“What did Papa do, Mom? What is he doing?”

“Nothing. Nothing. That’s it. He’s not doing a damn thing.”

“But, Mom, his stroke.”

“I know. He thinks that if he has sex, he’ll bring on another stroke. The doctor already told him that isn’t true. And I got so mad when he said he might die having sex, I told him there’s no better way to go.”

That was funny, but I knew better than to laugh.

“What can I do, Mom? Really?”

“Yes, you can do something. You talk to him. He’ll listen to you. Either you talk to him or I’ll put him out on the street. I’m a woman; I’m not a damn rock.”

I knew that voice very well. I knew that she had reached her level of frustration. She was ready to act.

“Okay, Mom. I don’t know what I will say, but I’ll talk to Papa.”

“You’d better do it soon, then.”

“Mom, you leave the house at five thirty this evening and I’ll telephone Papa after you’ve gone. Calm your heart, Mom. I’ll do my best.”

“Okay, baby. Bye. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

She was not happy, but at least she had calmed down. I pondered throughout the day what I could possibly say. At six o’clock California time I telephoned.

“Hi, Papa. How are you?”

“Hey, baby. How you doing?” He was happy to hear my voice.

“Fine, Papa. Please let me speak to Mom.”

“Oh, baby, she left here ’bout a half hour ago. Gone over to her cousin’s.”

“Well, Papa, I’m worried about her and her appetite. She didn’t eat today, did she?”

“Yes, she did. Cooked crab cakes and a slaw and asparagus. We ate it all.”

“Well, she’s not drinking, is she?”

“She had a beer with me, and you can bet she’s got a Dewar’s White Label in her hand right now.”

“But, Papa, something must be wrong. I mean, is she playing music, cards, and things?”

“We played
Take 6
all day on this music system you sent us, and I know she’s playing dominoes over there with your cousin.”

“Well, Papa, you seem to think her appetite is strong?”

“Oh, yeah, baby, your momma’s got a good appetite.”

“That’s true, Papa.” I lowered my voice. “All her appetites are strong. Papa, please excuse me, but I’m the only one to speak to you. It’s true her love appetite is strong, too, and, Papa, please excuse me, but if you don’t take care of her in that department, she will starve to death, Papa.” I heard him cough, sputter, and clear his throat.

“Please excuse me, Papa, but someone is at my door. I love you, Papa.”

There was a very weak “Bye, baby.”

My face was burning. I made a drink for myself. I had done the best I could, and I hoped it would work.

The next morning, about 7
A.M.
California time, my mother’s voice gave me the result.

“Hi, darling, Mother’s baby. You are the sweetest girl in the world. Mother just adores you.” She cooed and crooned, and I laughed for her pleasure.

Parents who tell their offspring that sex is an act performed only for procreation do everyone a serious disservice. With absolute distress, I must say that my mom died four years after that incident, but she remains my ideal. Now in my eighties, I plan to continue to be like her when I reach my nineties, and beyond, if I’m lucky.

Mother gave her children all she had to give, but I was never as lonely as Bailey for her presence. He always was the most precious person to me in my life and I had him. He, on the other hand, ached for her and all that the memory of her contained. He was five when we were sent away, and his young years were already filled with the sounds of music and laughter and the smack of her kisses.

The whirr of wheels and the honking of horns, the screech of sirens outside the house, the voices calling and shouting, were all in his hearing memory. Naturally, the empty roads and the barely furnished quiet rooms of Stamps could not satisfy him. He could not make Arkansas fit his soul’s desolation. But back with her in California, too, it was never quite enough. When he gazed at Mother, his glance was complex: Worship shared space with disappointment.
She was here, right now, where he could see her, but she had not been there when he needed her so desperately.

He began flirting with heroin at eighteen. He brushed off my concern. “I can handle it,” he said. He thought his high intellect could protect him from addiction. He was wrong. He left the merchant marine and San Francisco and began living in a drug-filled area nearby.

A dreadful premonition visited me. I thought I would be called and told that he was dead. The possibility nearly took my legs away. I began to stumble and even to stutter.

I found him in a shoot-up house in East Oakland. I had followed a suspicious trail until I came to an old house with broken windows. The front door was guarded by two gaunt, grim men in dirty clothes.

One asked, “What do you want?”

I said, “I’ve come for my brother.” There was neither fear nor hesitation in my voice.

The man nearest the door asked, “Are you the heat?”

I said, “No.” I raised my voice. “I am Bailey Johnson’s sister and I’ve come here for him.” The man heard my determination, then stepped away from the door as if choreographed. I entered the
stench and gloom. Immediately I realized I had never been in a place like that. When my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw Bailey sitting on a sofa bed, leaning back against the wall. I sat down beside him.

“Bail, I’ve come here to get you. Let’s go,” I said.

He raised up a little. “My, this is not your role. I am the big brother. You don’t come down and get me.”

I said, “Somebody has to do it. If not me, who?”

“Nobody. This is my life. I want you to go home.”

“I don’t want to leave you here. Next thing you’ll be in jail and who wants to go to jail?”

“Your mother said jail was made for people, not horses. Jail does not frighten me.”

I saw I was losing the conversation, if in fact I had not already lost it altogether. I put more urgency in my voice. “Bailey, I don’t want to leave you here. Anything can happen.”

He said, “And it probably will. You get up and go home to your son. I’m not doing too many bad things. I’m a fence. I sell hot goods to people who want bargains. I’m not hurting anybody but myself. Get up and go now. I don’t want these people to see too much of you.”

I started to cry.

He said, “For God’s sake, don’t whine. You can’t change me, but you can change you. Get on and go home.” He stood up. “Now.”

I joined him.

“I’ll take you to your car,” he said. “Let’s go.”

As usual, I obeyed. Outside on the steps he spoke to the two doormen. Bailey said, “This is my sister and she won’t be back.”

The men murmured and their behavior told me that Bailey was in charge.

At the car he said, “Stop worrying about me. Your mother understands that this is my life and I will live it as I see fit.”

Later, when I spoke to Mother about Bailey, she said, “Bailey has his own life. He’s never forgiven me for sending you all to Arkansas. I’m sorry that he can’t let that go. But I did the best I knew to do and I can’t undo history.”

Bailey met a girl who looked like Mother. She was pretty and, more important, she had a snappy personality. She spoke loudly and laughed often. His marriage to Eunice was his lifesaver. They moved to Hawaii and he was able to live a life so clean and normal that upon looking at him, it was hard to believe he had ever been a drug addict.

The couple took up tennis seriously and hiking as a pastime. But Bailey’s marriage was cut short by Eunice’s unexpected death. My brother lost his tenuous hold on sanity. He went to the funeral wearing his tennis whites and carrying two tennis rackets. He went to the open casket and laid one racket over her body. Within a week, Bailey had disappeared again into the greedy maw of the drug world.