Somebody's Someone (13 page)

Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! There he goes again! That dumb driver was at it again, yelling at folks like they couldn’t understand pure talking! We had arrived in Texarkana, and he said that everybody had to get off here for all points going east and onward. Those of us who’d be departing here was told to get our luggage. I grabbed my case and sweater. Big Mama grabbed nothing. The bus pulled into the terminal and came to a quick stop. The driver said something ’bout us running late, so folks who was riding with him needed to listen for the announcements telling when to get back on the bus. After the passengers in the first six rows got out, it was our turn. I led the way, and Big Mama was cut off by a fat man who had to turn sideways ’cause his gut got stuck in the aisle. I waited for Big Mama on the sidewalk, and as soon as the big man was out, I saw her wig coming down the stairs. The driver took her hand and helped her to the ground.

“Come on, Gina.” Big Mama put her hand in the middle of my back and kinda pushed me into the station, where we could check on my bus. Before she could get up to the counter, she was already talking to the man standing behind it.

“Excuse me, sir, but can you tell me when the next bus to North Carolina is leavin’?”

“Why, yes, ma’am, I surely can. You jest hol’ right there.” He picked up the phone and started talkin’ to somebody. When he finished, he turned round and said, “The bus to Jacksonville, Narth Caralina, will be arrivin’ and leavin’ in about fit-teen minites outta gate fo’.” I ain’t heard nobody talk that backwoods since
Hee Haw.
I hated the way he sounded.

Big Mama and me went and sat down on the benches next to gate four. Lately when I got real mad and held my breath, my stomach would start pulling and stretching on the inside and I’d have to go number two. Then, instead of it being hard and needing a good push, it would fall out my butt ’fore I could get my panties down. I didn’t say nothing to nobody, though; I would just try and get to the toilet faster. If not, I’d take my soiled underwear off and hide ’em under the bed or throw ’em away. This time I was lucky; I got to the toilet in time. When I came back, Big Mama was waiting right where I left her. I was glad she hadn’t run off and left me like I thought she woulda. I sat down, and we both said nothing.

Over the loudspeaker, I heard the man who had helped us: “All y’all folks headin’ tarwards Jacksonville, Gainesville, and Raleigh, Narth Caralina, should start lining up at gate fo’.” Seemed like it took him forever to say that simple sentence. I heard the grown folks say that only hillbillies drag their words out over a week long and that that gave the drawl a bad name. We gathered up my things and headed to the line that was forming. I was walkin’ too slow, so Big Mama grabbed my arm and pulled me. I kept thinking to myself, Who would Big Mama have to go on business trips with? Who would scratch and oil her scalp, or get the blackheads outta her back with a bobby pin? I know that I was the only one allowed to rub Vicks VapoRub b’tween her thighs, when her legs rubbed together and chafed. How was she gonna get on without me? I couldn’t let myself believe that I was gonna have to be alone without Big Mama.

The bus was starting to load, and our turn was getting closer. I wanted to run, but I didn’t know where to go. I got on the bus, and Big Mama told me to sit in the front seat, behind the driver. She sat down next to me and started talking.

“Now, Gina, you gonna be on this bus three days. At the end of that time, somebody will be waiting on you. I ain’t telling you who in case they don’t show. But if you get there and nobody comes for you, here’s a quarter so you can call me.” She wrote the number down and put it in my hand along with the money. I already knowed the number by heart—I guess she must’ve forgot that.

“Now you got your Nilla Wafers and the soda. That should hold you a coupla days. Just don’t eat ’em all at one time; I don’t want you getting sick, ya hear me? You be good, you hear, and Big Mama will see you later now; I’ll come and see you.” As she stood to go she patted me on the head. “Don’t forget now: stay on this bus for three days. I told the driver ’bout you, and he’s gonna keep an eye out for you; just don’t make no trouble for him.”

I could barely hear what she was sayin’. It didn’t matter—I didn’t give a care to what she said.

Her mouth kept moving as she walked off the bus. “Keep to ya’self, ya hear?”

Those was the last words Big Mama said to me. Then she was gone. My chest was so full of air I could rest my chin on it. When I let my breath out, Johnnie Jean Thornhill was nowhere to be seen. She said she was gonna come and see me—when was she gonna come? Could she come now? Would she be there—wherever—when I arrived? The sun had left the sky, leaving no traces of light. There was nothing to even show me where she once stood and no sweet mem’ry worth keeping. I didn’t see her wave bye-bye. Or give me special wind kisses that I’d seen people on TV throw so freely when someone they like a lot goes away. Sometimes it might be a mama sending her son off to a boot camp, or maybe a wife sending her young husband to join the army. No matter what, the women would run alongside the bus or train for as long as it was in sight. Then at the last minute they’d take they hand and put it to they mouth, kiss it, and toss it into the wind.

I never heard the bus start its engine or pull out the station. By the time I realized she was really gone, we was moving down the street.

I didn’t care what she said, I wasn’t sitting by this stupid driver!
I was gonna sit where I damned well pleased. And she couldn’t tell me how many cookies to eat, ’cause I was gonna eat ’em all right here and now! One right after the other. And if Lula Mae’s ugly face was standing right b’fore my very eyes, I would smash her upside her stupid head with that strawberry Cragmont soda and watch her bleed. Yeah, that’s right! And I wouldn’t even help her take the glass outta her face! Why was Big Mama leaving me? What did I do bad this time?

I cain’t begin to count the tears that fell from my eyes that night. I cried and cried and cried. And like a old cat that leaves to die by itself, I moved away from the driver and found a seat nearer to the bathroom, the ones that have three seats connected together. I took my body and tried to crawl into the crack that separated the seat from the back. I pulled my knees up to my bosom and wrapped my arms round my legs. I hated Big Mama! No matter what, I wasn’t coming back to see her again!

Trying to quiet my voice, I put my fist in my mouth and bit down on it. I cried silently into my hand and the seat cushions. And like I always did, when I was sad, no matter what, I called out for my mama. I never understood why that was so, but it was like something inside me thought that she just might hear me.

Ruby.
I kept on repeating and begging God to help me. The harder I begged, the drier my throat got and felt like razor blades was cutting me to the bone. I begged till it felt like my heart was gonna blow right out my chest. I begged till I got dizzy and it seemed like for sho’ I was gonna throw up all over myself. By the time I was done pleading and begging God to help me, my head felt like somebody had split it open with an axe. I had to tell myself I didn’t care and that it didn’t matter and that I was gonna be all right. I pulled myself tighter and tried to tell myself I was gonna be all right.

CHAPTER FIVE

UNCLE SAM

THE SECOND DAY
of my trip seemed like it might be a bit better. I’d cried myself out the night b’fore, and there was nothing left to do but wait and get to where I was going next. I say it was the second day ’cause I asked the driver, noticin’ he wasn’t the one I started with. I think he heard my thoughts, ’cause he answered the question I didn’t even have a chance to ask: “I know what cha thinking. I got on last night while you was sleepin’.” Staring at his face through the big mirror, I watched as his eyebrows danced ’cross his forehead when he talked. After a while I was sorry for speaking up. This man just kept right on talking like everybody wanted to hear how long he’d been driving and how he had earned the li’l gold greyhound dog pins he had pinned to his shirt collar—one for every year of service. He had five. I had no mind for knowing anything more ’bout him. The longer he talked, the more his voice sounded like a low hum, and in no time at all, I was back in one of my other places.

Sister was sittin’ ’cross the yard with a charcoal drawing stick and a big white paper board in her hand. I knowed not to bother her when she went into one of her drawing spells, so I went on digging my deep holes in the dirt. I was hoping to break through to a hidden oil well, just like Jed Clampett had done. That way I could run off and live in Beverly Hills in a big ole castle—wherever Beverly Hills was.

Every now and again, I’d see Doretha look up and then back at her drawing paper. I couldn’t for the life of me ’magine how she could be coloring anything while she was so busy looking to see what I was doing.

“Hey, girl, come over here!” Doretha had put the charcoal crayon down and cleared a place in the dirt, next to her, for me to sit in.

“Look. Who does that remind you of?”

“Lord have mercy, how’d you do that? How’d you learn to draw me?”

I watched as my sister lifted the big paper board up and tore the picture of me off.

“Here, you can have it. Now you can’t ever say I’ve never gave you nothin’.”

I took the picture of me and sat with it for a while. Doretha got up and left, but I stayed right where I was. I simply’d never seen anything like it. She had made my eyes, hair, and skin they real color. Even the dirt stains on my blue-and-white-striped seersucker dress was there. I wondered if I had special drawing powers inside me, just like my sister had, and one day they just might come out. I figured Doretha had to be the smartest person in the world other than my teachers. I folded my big picture up and buried it in the backyard for safekeeping—I marked my treasure with a God’s eye that I’d made out of old thread and oak tree switches—that way nobody but me would know where it was hiding. Would I ever find it again?

We came to a stop with the bus driver’s voice still ringing in my ears. I suppose listening to the driver must’ve dried my throat out, ’cause I sure was thirsty all of a sudden. Taking the li’l vanity case from under my feet, I laid it on my lap to steady it. I r’membered that I still had the soda water Big Mama had put in it. Big Mama. I turned to look at the empty seat next to me and had to tell myself that she was gone for real.

I went to open the soda water and seen that I didn’t have a bottle-top opener. Of all the things that Big Mama had thought to put into this stupid case, Nilla Wafers and soda, I couldn’t believe she forgot the most important. How could she be so dumb? I wanted to throw the bottle through the front window of the bus. But b’fore I got rid of it, I r’membered seeing my sister showing off and telling me how she had just learned to open a soda pop bottle with a quarter. I could do that! I reached into my sweater pocket and removed the quarter that I was to use in case of emergency. From where I stood, this was an emergency—if I died of thirst, I wasn’t gonna use the quarter anyway! Holding the long skinny part of the soda-water bottle, I started prying the hell outta that cap. I was so busy taking the top off, I didn’t realize how badly the bottle was being shaken up, and on the last tug, not only did the cap come flying off, but the red stuff had fizzled and spurted out all over my hands. Desperately trying to wet my starving tongue, I started sucking on that thing like a dill pickle with a peppermint stick in it. It almost tasted as good, and I got just ’nough to get my throat to swallow.

Looking down, my dress was not a pretty sight. I had red sticky stuff all over me, but for the first time, I didn’t give a hoot. I wished that big ole red pinchy bugs would come and eat my dress off. And when they was done with that, they could eat my mouth and tongue. Maybe then, I wouldn’t get into so much trouble.

We stopped for ’bout five minutes in a town called Knoxville, and a few folks got on. I took that time to go to the toilet to wash my hands. I didn’t want the pinchy bugs to get my hands. Big Mama had said that one day my hands was gonna serve me good, specially if I scratched and dug in everybody’s scalp like I did hers. When I got back from the washroom, I noticed a lady who’d sat down in the seat in front of mine. As grown folks say, she was light, bright, and damned near white. She wore an all-green outfit with a matching hat shaped like half a football, dented in in the middle. I couldn’t help myself but to stare at her. She smiled at me, so I ’tempted to lift the left corner of my lip back at her. I didn’t feel like being bothered. I took my seat, crossed my arms over my chest, and stared at the back of her head. I think she felt me looking at her, ’cause she turned round and started talkin’ to me.

“How you doing, honey girl?” she asked me with a long smile.

“My name’s not honey girl,” I informed her. “Why you go and call me that anyway?” I studied her face while I waited for an answer. Her eyes pulled together with strain.

“Well, the way I sees it, your eyes and skin are the same honey color. So I called you ‘honey girl.’ I’m sorry if I upset you.” The smile slowly came back to her face, showing off a set of perfect pearly whites. Folks told me I had beautiful teeth all my life, so I knew what to look for. “What’s your real name, suga’?”

“Regina Louise.” I answered with the names I liked best. I ’magined that by now everybody in south Austin, and maybe even further, knowed that my last name wasn’t really mine. The story goes that my mama had borrowed it from my sister’s daddy so that she wouldn’t have to explain that she had been with two different men. But that only confused things, ’cause nobody seemed to know who Sister’s daddy really was. Later folks come to find out that Ollison, the name she’d borrowed, didn’t even belong to my sister’s daddy. It really belonged to a boy she was dating at the time she got pregnant with Doretha. I’d overheard so much nonsense ’bout this daddy and that, I couldn’t keep up with any of it. And if I couldn’t keep track—and it was my own family—I felt sorry for anybody who had to try and figure it all out. So I figured Regina Louise was all anybody needed to know.