Songbird (2 page)

The Texas Inn, serving chili and barbecue and egg sandwiches and the like, drew in all manner of truckers back in those days. Guys with names like Norman and Al and Bobby-Jay gathered from far and wide just to steal a glimpse of the saucy waitress with the pearly teeth. See, Mama, well, she was flat-out the prettiest waitress there. I grew up hunched awkwardly at the counter, penciling schoolwork, weighed down by the red frizzy ponytail I usually gathered myself thereby accidentally achieving a topsy-turvy effect. Listening to the juke-box blurt out country-western music and the occasional rock n’ roll tune like “Sweet Home Alabama,” I watched as Mama worked her magic on the customers. She never introduced me to her customers, even the regulars.

I guess I couldn't blame her.

“Ask for Isla. She'll treat you right,” folks leaving informed those just walking through the doorway. I just didn't know how right she treated them! I just thought she was sassy and smart and daring and removed, as if humans wasted her time unless they were admiring her and even then, she met compliments with snappy derision.

“That Isla is something else!”

“Isla darlin’, you just come on over here and refill my coffee and we'll talk about
things.
”

She'd say, “Stuff it in your pants, Joe, there's plenty of room down there.”

And they'd just laugh.

“That Isla sure ain't hard on the eyes, is she, Stanley?”

And Mama wasn't. I disappointed her that way, I know. We looked nothing alike, this harsh white and red, bloodshot eye of a child and her black-eyed Susan mama. Mama's brown hair radiated a golden warmth and she always wore it straight down, its waves curving around her sweet, valentine face. Olive complexioned with reddish brown lips, she talked smart to the men, hands on hips, chin pointed high as though she really had no business waiting tables at the Texas Inn. Mama's way of answering questions without really answering them kept them at bay, yet happy, and when a rare jovial mood visited her, all sorts of crazy stories from sparkling lips entertained them, tales of escapades filled with phrases like, “And then he took out his,” and she'd lean far forward, exposing her bosoms all the while keeping my little ears from hearing her words.

She never seemed to inhabit her eyes. Not really.

I only knew this about her: Mama came to Lynchburg in 1956 as a freshman at Randolph Macon Women's College and never left. She told me she grew up in Suffolk, Virginia, and had planned on never seeing the place again.

“It's the most boring, stuffiest old place you've ever seen. And your grandma Min is the most boring, stuffiest old woman you've ever seen. Who needs the ‘peanut capital of the world’? We can have lots of fun right here in Lynchburg. So don't ask to go there, Myrtle,” she said.

And I didn't ask. Because when fun and Mama collided, the party lasted for weeks! But most times, Mama distanced herself from me and everyone else, it seemed, and when she didn't want to talk about something, she wouldn't. She'd just sip on her glass of “medicinal gin” and pretend you never asked a thing. Sometimes she stared out between the blinds and talked about Queen Elizabeth.

She'd go on vacation usually after one of those times. Somehow Mrs. Blackburn always knew when Mama really needed a vacation. And I’d spend those days with Mrs. Blackburn, sitting on her porch overlooking the street. And I’d watch all those college girls and realize I’d never walk in their shoes. I knew that then, somehow, as well as I knew when looking at
National Geographics
at school that I’d never be living by a mud hut, wearing a thousand necklaces above bare breasts.

One particular student named Margie would take me out for milk shakes when Mama was on vacation. She'd say, “Rich or poor, it doesn't matter. This sort of thing hits women of all walks and ages. Believe me, my mother goes at least once or twice a year, so I know firsthand.” I really thought she was talking about vacations so I said, “How nice for her,” and she'd say, “You don't get it yet, do you, Myrtle?”

“Get what?” I’d ask.

She'd just smile and say, “Good for you.”

One night, after I turned eight, I heard Mama sneaking out of our room. A real pretty dress the color of the blue ink on my school papers hovered above shoes with heels whittled down to little dots at the bottom, the kind that look as though you could kill somebody with if they were giving you trouble.

So from my spot on the bed, the spot next to the sea-foam green wall, I asked her, “Where you goin’, Mama? Who you going with?”

And Mama said, “Out. Don't even ask, Myrtle Charmaine, because you're old enough now to be here for a couple of hours by yourself.” But she couldn't hide the sparkle in her eyes.

“What if there's a fire or something?”

“You just find Mrs. Blackburn. She'll take care of you; you know that. But it had better only be because there's a fire or something. I’m so excited, Myrtle.”

“But what about if I get sick?”

“Your towel's hanging right there.” She pursed her lips.

“But—”

She shook her head and finger and grabbed my ear with a twist. “I mean it, Myrtle. If I find out you went out of this room while I’m out, you'll wish you hadn't!”

“Oh, Mama!”

“Shut up, now, Myrtle.” She let go. “Let this be a nice time for me.”

And so I said nothing else, because when Mama really exploded it was like a ball of blue lightning circling down the chimney to what had seemed like a fine party only a moment before. A blue ball skirting about the room like the Tazmanian Devil. And when she exploded she said some cruel things. I kept a list so I wouldn't say them to my own kids someday.

1. You ruined my life.

2. You don't appreciate anything I do for you.

3. How did I end up stuck with you?

4. Get out of my face, Myrtle, I can't bear to see you for one more second.

She called me the name of a female dog a lot. Even now I can't speak that word or write it, and people use it so flippantly it makes my teeth ache.

And Mama never
asked
me to do anything.

“Get over here.”

“Go away.”

“Fix that hair of yours, Myrtle. You look like a clown.”

Now, a lot of the kids at school had parents that spanked them good. But Mama always gave me the silent treatment after her tirades. I’d rather have been walloped and been done with it. One time, when I brought Vicki Miller home with me from school, Mama rewarded me with a two-hour lecture I could barely comprehend and an icy silence for three days afterward. We ate some lonely meals together over at the soda fountain in the drugstore by the college for a while and I figured if I ever crossed her again, only something big and worth more than Vicki Miller would do.

My nosebleeds started around then. Mama jumped on that, telling me not to come down to the restaurant after school anymore, saying, “Nobody wants you to bleed all over their corn dog, Myrtle. And I wager the sight of you caused them to lose their appetites anyway.”

Mama sure was right, though, about bringing Vicki home because before then, nobody knew much about me and where I lived. And Vicki told everybody about our little rented room, saying, “Imagine that! Myrtle Whitehead doesn't even live in a house! She just lives in a little room near the college, with lots of other college girls in the house.” And then, just so she didn't indisputably prove herself the Devil incarnate she had turned out to be, she added a, “Poor Myrtle.”

See, Mama made sure my clothes looked nice because she was proud like that and I think she tried to do the best she could with the Raggedy Anne daughter she found herself responsible for. She skimped on issues of lodging, food, and transportation. It didn't matter what the weather, Mama always walked down to the Texas Inn to save bus fare. And I can't even begin to tell you how many leftover egg sandwiches rolled up in three layers of napkin I ate for breakfast before school.

I never knew life could be any different.

I looked out the window that night Mama left in such excitement. The man down there, he looked like a no-good. With golden rings, bracelets, and patent leather shoes for company, his overall appearance gave off more shade than the oak trees lining Rivermont Avenue.

I sure didn't like the way he laid a hand on Mama's rear end.

Pretending I slept, I felt Mama climb into the bed beside me hours later. “See, Minerva Whitehead? I can make out just fine on my own,” she whispered with a drunk laugh.

I felt a movement in the bed and winked open my eye and she lay there fluttering a wrist encircled by a new gold bracelet. Slim, and light. I’d seen them in the jewelry store window downtown. They cost next to nothing.

“Real gold,” she giggled.

I felt reasonably sure Minerva Whitehead, the grandma I’d never known, didn't think that going out on dates with shady guys like that no-good counted as making out just fine at all.

2

I
began singing at five years old. Mama would drop me off at First Baptist Church right on Rivermont Avenue at nine o'clock on Sunday mornings and she'd continue on toward downtown and heaven knows what. This Sunday school teacher named Mrs. Evans taught us little songs like, “Shadrach Meshach and Abednego,” “Dare to Be a Daniel,” “My Lord Knows the Way Through the Wilderness,” and my favorite one about the Devil sitting on a tack. Mrs. Evans approached me one day just as we finished singing “The Happy Day Express” and said, “Myrtle, the Lord has given you a gift.”

And I looked around for a bright package somewhere in the room. “I don't see nothin’, Miz Evans.”

Mrs. Evans laughed and her dark, straight hair swung back and forth like wind chimes in the breeze, and her pretty blue eyes scrunched up like pansies before they bloom. “It's not in a box, Myrtle, unless you count your voice box.”

Then she told me that God's gift to me was my singing voice. “You never forget who gave you your pretty voice, Myrtle. Some gifts God blesses us with because we've taken the time to work hard at them, but some of them, special ones like you've got are just flat-out free.”

I hugged her then and she felt so warm. When she hugged me back I cried. Her warmth, her sweetness, her joy ran like waters in the desert. I look back on that moment now and I realize that Mrs. Evans saved my life right then. And even to this day, when I imagine my larynx I picture a little gift box there in my throat, given to me by God so that I can return the favor. It's wrapped in dark blue paper with gold stars. And gold ribbon—the real fabric kind, that shimmers and glows with each note that comes from beneath the lid—holds it all together.

3

M
y relationship with Mama had its redeeming times every so often, like shopping together for school clothes or my Easter dress. One year when I was nine I tried on a lavender dress and coat, the kind with the little silk bouquet of flowers pinned at the collar. I slowly slid the latch of the dressing room door to the right, anticipating her displeasure upon the revelation of my person. You see, I’d swung a lot the day before at recess, creating a tangle of auburn thicker than a bed of sea kelp, and my scalp still hadn't recovered from the brushing she'd given my hair. I’d screamed and cried, but that one crack of the brush to the side of my head cured that. I looked like a blotched piece of chicken in a dress.

She sat there on an upholstered fold-out chair near the dressing room door. “Turn around, Myrtle.” Her index finger up to her mouth, she looked me over, nodding slowly. “Yes, ma'am, that will do.” And that year, she knelt down and pulled me close and said, “You really are a pretty thing, Myrtle Charmaine. And someday, we'll just put a little permanent wave in that hair of yours to calm things down, but for now, you're little, and it works just fine.”

I never knew what to believe.

I hid the rest of my nosebleeds from her. But she never let me come back to the restaurant except for dinner a few times. And the nosebleeds only surfaced with greater frequency as though my body tried in any way possible to release what had become pent up inside of me.

She met him the December before she threw off the mantle of motherhood. The snazzy guy from Washington, D.C. Nothing like that no-good Lynchburg fellow she traded up for years before, this man reeked of savior faire. He topped quite a list:

1. Old Guy. Nothing distinct about him.

2. Salesman Guy. He always shook her hand and said, “Hi, good to see you.”

3. Bald Guy. My favorite. I swear he used to be a friar or something. Hardly a man inclined to caterwaul with a woman like my Mama.

A woman like my mama.

If that isn't a too tight shoe I don't know what is.

There were more. Cowboy Guy. Trucker Guy. And lots more Old Guys. Oh, my lands, more than any woman's fair share of Old Guys bobbed their way down Mama's list.

“Don't go near that window when you hear the horn blow, Myrtle.”

I watched her get ready. Just like most little girls do, I guess, I found my mother fascinating. Now, when she went to work at the Texas Inn, she wore her hair real simple, either straight down, or back in a headband or a low ponytail. But that night, I’ll never forget the way she pulled it up into a French twist, and how the golden streaks in the brown of her hair shimmered like a hundred glowing rivers back into the whirlpool of hair at the crown of her regal head.

Her long neck gleamed white in the light of the small, frilly lamp on the school desk that performed double duty as my place of study and her vanity. So there she sat, her elbow bent against the wooden surface, an eyebrow pencil in her slim clutch, and she worked it so smoothly, first on her eyelids, then in quick little strokes on her brows. “And I’m not sure when I’ll be home, so don't even ask.”

“You look so pretty, Mama.”

“I do? You really think so, Myrtle?”

“You're the prettiest lady in Lynchburg, Mama.”

“Let's hope Jeremy thinks so.”

Jeremy! That sounded like a classy name.

“Why are you being so nice, Myrtle? You get in trouble at school today?”

“No, ma'am.”

She rooted in the drawer for the lipstick brush. Sometimes when I’d get home from school, I’d sit there and pull the cap off her lipstick brush. I’d twist the bristles into view and do my own lips with the residue left from when she'd painted on her lipstick before work. One day I forgot to wipe it off before she came home and she said, “Myrtle, you look like a tramp. Wash your mouth right now.”