Somebody's Someone (7 page)

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die b’fore I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless Big Mama, Doretha, and any bad kids like me that gets whoopin’s. I’m sorry, God, if I really did do somethin’ wrong. And please, Lord, send me my mama.” I said my prayers and climbed in bed next to Odetta. I scooted way over towards the edge so I wasn’t in her way. I didn’t wanna wear out my welcome.

I had learned all ’bout welcomes from Lula. She’d told Sister and me that we’d long since stayed way past quitting time. And any time we wanted to quit, she’d be happy to oblige us. The grown folks never really said anything to her, either, when Lula made fun at me and Doretha. They’d just laugh it off and tell her to not be so conniving. I hated that Lula Mae got to get away wit’ whatever she wanted to. I really couldn’t wait till I got grown.

After closing my eyes, I secretly asked God to tell Big Mama I was sorry, and not to be mad at me for leaving and to let her know that I wasn’t quittin’, I just needed a break from Lula.

I looked round the room, letting my eyes get used to the darkness. Odetta’s house was strange to me, so my eyes seen nothing that made ’em feel like home. At Big Mama’s there was always a light left on in the bathroom so that nobody got scared at night. And I always knew that Daddy Lent was in the house at all times, when he wasn’t fishing or working, keeping it protected from the boogeyman and vampires. Daddy Lent might’ve said three words the whole time I knowed him, but all the same I liked him being there. But here, at Odetta’s, it was quiet; the kind of quiet that could only be heard in darkness. The kind of quiet that showed you something was really wrong wit’ the way things was.

From the looks of things, Odetta didn’t have no husband to protect us—at least not one that I could find. I’d looked on both sides of the bed to see if a pair of men’s house shoes was partially hanging out, like Daddy Lent’s would be, and I saw nothing. Nor was there a striped burgundy-and-off-yellow man’s housecoat hung up on a nail on the back of the bathroom door that smelled like Old Spice and Bugle Boy tobacco pipe smoke.

As I laid awake, I let my mind wander on the thought that maybe my so-called daddy, Glenn, was never round me ’cause his daddy wasn’t round him. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why my mama just liked chasing after other women’s mens. Whatever the truth was for the both of them, all I knowed was that I was never gonna be like none of them folks from Austin. I wasn’t gonna ever have li’l kids and leave ’em in a place with people who couldn’t even stand the sight of ’em. And I was never gonna have no boyfriend or husband anyway. That way I knowed for certain that I wasn’t gonna have to have no kids I didn’t want in the first place.

I didn’t sleep too good, ’cause my skin was on fire all night long. My body tossed and turned like the sometimes working, potbellied washing machine Big Mama had sitting out on her back porch. Odetta must’ve had it rough with me too, ’cause she’d moved into the living room. I could hear her calling hogs from the couch.

Finally, it was morning. As I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, I could feel my clothes pulling—they was stuck to my skin. I looked down at myself and saw where the material had soaked into my welts when I was sleepin’ and made the pajamas stick to me. I felt sorry for my skin and wondered if I was always gonna have scars from this. I started to tear up, but I made my tears fall quietly, ’cause I didn’t want to wake Odetta. My head was pounding. It felt like somebody was standing on the inside of it beating me with a hammer to let them out.

I thought back on the other times when Lula had beaten me. Usually it was when we’d get word of my mama’s whereabouts. Or, if she’d misplaced something and I couldn’t read her mind to find it—
blam!
She’d haul off and hit me, like it was my fault she lost it. Once when Lula had gone on one of her sprees and used a rosebush stem to tan my hide, Sister had to put me in a tub of Epsom salt to calm my body down ’nough so she could help me take the little thorns out my skin. I kinda wished Sister was here to help me now.

I dried my eyes with the sleeve of my pajamas and slowly slipped off the bed onto the floor. I was gonna draw myself a tub and soak my clothes off. While I let the water warm up and the tub fill, I looked under the sink to try and find Epsom salt. I caught sight of what the grown folks called “clawed feet” on the bottom of the bathtub.

Out at the Thornhills’ we had a claw-footed tub too, but the left front foot on it had clawed its way right through the linoleum tile and the po’ thing was leaning to the ground whenever anybody got in it. At the same time, you could see what was going on under the house while taking a bath. Odetta’s tub was nice and white, wit’ no dirty body rings round the inside or softened turds left over from somebody getting a enema. Out at Big Mama’s it seemed like all us kids was full of backed-up bowel movements, and the only way to unplug our asses was to get in the bathtub and have some long white thing stuck up our butt holes. I sho’ didn’t like that a’tall, but this was just as bad. I found the salt and poured it into the falling water, just like I seen Sister do.

When the bath was halfway full, I sat on one side to get my feet warm; then I put my hands on either side and lowered my body into the water. I couldn’t believe that I was in somebody’s bathtub that I didn’t really know—I’d never been this far away from home b’fore, and I certainly barely bathed when I was home—but I was sho’ glad to have a clean white tub. It didn’t take long for the material to loosen up. Once I was wet enough, I started gently working my clothes away from my skin bit by bit. I’d grit my teeth down hard-like and pull the real bad ones back fast. Each time I pulled at the material, I told myself that I hated Lula’s guts for what she’d done to me. And I hoped that one day the same thing would happen to her, or worse, her own kids—except baby Ella. Maybe then she’d see what it felt like to be me.

I managed to get myself cleaned off and changed without waking up Odetta. I didn’t want for her to have to look after me too much, in case I needed to stay for a while. I put my own panties back on and the shirt I had worn to bed. Not wanting the water to drip all over, I wrapped the wet pajamas in a towel. While stepping on one end of the towel, I twisted the other with my hand until the water ran out, and then I wiped up the puddle I made. Realizing that most houses in the South had clotheslines in they backyards, I found Odetta’s and hung the clothes out on the line to dry. Then I got back in bed to wait for Odetta to wake up.

CHAPTER THREE

TALKING TO STRANGERS

“GOOD MORNING
, Miss Lady.” Odetta smiled as she came back into the room after her night out on the couch. I didn’t notice b’fore, but her hair was sectioned and twisted on li’l torn pieces of brown paper bag. I recognized ’em right away; me and Sister had some of our own. They was used to roll hair on when you didn’t have money for the pink sponge rollers; and they was s’posed to be just as good; at least that’s what Big Mama told me when I asked for the pretty pink ones and she wanted to know how I was gonna pay for ’em.

“Hi.” I waved shyly to Odetta, not sure if she still felt the same ’bout me today that she had yesterday.

“Now that cha all cleant up with a good night’s sleep, can you tell me why them folks over yonder was aiming to beat the daylights out cha?”

“Um, I dunno,” I answered back as my shoulders lifted to help me out, all along knowing that I couldn’t even explain them folks to myself let alone her.

“I just think that Lula plain ole hates me, and that’s why she wants me dead. Ever since my mama left us kids out to south Austin, Lula’s been mad at her. And since Ruby, my mama, ain’t there to stand up for herself, Lula takes it out on me and sometimes, but not too much, my sister Doretha Ann.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right, ya sho’ do have a sister out there, ain’t cha. I wonder what that mama of yours Ruby was thankin’ when she left y’all kids out there with them there people? From what I hears she ain’t bit more kin to them than I am to the man on the moon. I guess she was just no more than a chile herself and didn’t know what else to do wit’ cha, huh? Plus yo’ mama sho’ was a fast one from what I hears. I ain’t seen her too many times, but I know she sho’ is pretty too. That’s what knocked my boy Glenn off his feet, was her prettiness. They met out at the high school, Ruby and yo’ daddy. I don’t think they known each other too long b’fore you come along. Seem like I met ya’ mama once or twice, and the next thing I known she ain’t coming round no more. But, that’s all right, ’cause you is here now.”

I didn’t know if Odetta was talking to me or herself. Seem like some of her words should’ve been meant for grown folks’ ears and not mine. At Big Mama’s I always eavesdropped to find out this stuff Odetta was telling on folks.

“Miss Odetta?”

“Yeah, what, baby?”

“What name should I call you by?”

“Well you can call me ‘Mama,’ or you can call me whatever sounds good, but whatever you do, call me somethin’ nice.”

I hated it when grown folks tried to be funny. I know she was telling me not to use dirty words when calling her attention, like “hey dog-face” or “yella-belly sap-sucker.” She didn’t have to worry; I knew better than to say anything bad ’bout a grown-up to their face. Since Odetta was actually bigger than Johnnie Jean, I thought she was a better fit for the name Big Mama. So I gave her the name Big Mama Fontaine. Anyway it was easier than saying just plain ole “Mama” and I was hoping to save that word in case I was to ever get one of my own.

I watched as Odetta laughed herself right into a li’l coughing spell. After nearly choking herself to death, she opened up a drawer in her bedside table and took out a ho-hound drop.

“You want one, sugar?”

“Yeah.” I took it and folded it in my hand. Ho-hound was one of Big Mama’s favorite hard candies; she used ’em just like Odetta—when she coughed. As my eyes wandered round the place, I seen a picture on the headboard of Odetta’s bed which I hadn’t given much mind to the night before. It was a man with a Afro shaped like the globes we had in our classroom. He had a high forehead, and his skin looked real high yellow, almost piss color. He had a pretty smile too, that seemed to spread all the way ’cross Austin. I let his pale face and funny-colored eyes sneak off into my head, wonderin’ all the while if the stirring I felt in my belly meant he was somebody I already knowed.

“Big Mama Fontaine, is that man on your headboard your husband? The one with the big forehead?”

“For heaven’s sake, chile, no! I ain’t had no husband to thank ’bout for a long time. Anyway, I was married so many times I stopped countin’ at number four. And that don’t count the ones I wudn’t even married to. And that ain’t nobody’s bid-ness, ya hear? That there photo you seein’ is yo’ daddy, Glenn. Ain’t he somethin’ just standing there? I’m so proud of him. I know he’s out there in that Los Angeles gettin’ famous so one day he can buy me a big house. Least that’s what he says to me. You sho’ should be proud a him too, honey. You know, he working the big time these days. I thank you can hear some a his songs on the red-dio. I know he ain’t done it all right, but he trying to make somethin’ of himself.”

My insides started moving in a way that made me wanna roll my eyes so deep into my head, I myself wouldn’t be able to find ’em. I thought back to that stupid picture of Glenn and tried to r’member the first time we met to see if I could make out his face, but my mind was too jumpy, and I couldn’t see him too clear. Every time I tried to concentrate, there came Big Lawrence’s black and ugly face, and I couldn’t keep my mind steady. For the life of me, I didn’t see all of what Odetta seen in her son. And I sho’ didn’t want no part of my so-called daddy right then.

I thought Odetta had to be losing her mind. And as a matter fact, I wished she had. That way I wouldn’t have to wrap my thinking round what she’d just said. Why would she want to claim a son who didn’t even know me and barely even seen me? I bet he didn’t even know my middle name. And anyway, what was there for me to be proud of in him? He never came for me when Lula Mae was tearing me up. Plus, why would he leave me with somebody who didn’t even like kids? I could see that Odetta was nice and all, but she seemed to have it all wrong ’bout her stupid son—and me—if for one minute she thought I was gonna be liking him the way she did. I was almost sorry for asking her ’bout that picture.

I had come to Odetta on a Saturday, and on Sunday, she told me it would look good for us both if I was in school. Specially since she was gonna have to go to the county judge on my account and ask his permission for me to stay with her. She said that if we did everythang right, then we would have a better chance of me not having to ever deal with Lula again. Just then, everything seemed to be moving so quick. I wasn’t for sho’ that I wanted to stay with my daddy’s mama. Like I said b’fore, Odetta was nice and all, but I didn’t know her like I did Big Mama Thornhill. And anyway, she made it sound like her good-for-nothing son meant the world to her and could do no wrong, which could mean that I was no better off with her than with Big Mama.

At Big Mama’s it seemed like there was always an excuse for her real kin to get away with whatever bad thing they done. For instance, one time I told her that Aint Bobbie’s son Lenny made me put on boxing gloves, then beat the mess outta me while all along claiming he was trying to make me tougher. Big Mama said, “Oh, girl, he just tryin’ to show you how to take up for yourself. Just hush yo’ mouth and be thankful somebody wanna take the time wit’ cha.” But then, if I went and whooped the shit outta somebody else, I was wrong and got hit twice as hard. Not only that, but I was told that if I came home from a fight and the other person got the best of me, then I was gonna get it even worse. Yet when her gran’boys got into fights, there was always somebody wanting to put a Band-Aid on ’em and tell ’em it was all right.

Even though she tended to favor her real kin, I wanted to call Big Mama right then and there and let her know that a judge could take me away from her and she might never see me again. Maybe then she would make Lula leave me alone. I missed Big Mama, but I didn’t wanna say nothing to hurt Odetta’s feelings.