The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou (49 page)

Despite my youth and high school clothes and stilted Spanish, I wasn’t popular at Clara’s. The men preferred Bea. She had a swing to her hips and a knowing smile that I couldn’t imitate. Then, Mexican farm workers obviously had no erotic fantasies starring black teen-age girls; they came to a whorehouse for a whore, and Bea answered their needs.

—

“Have a good time, you all.” Clara waved to L.D. and me from the steps. He didn’t acknowledge her but I turned and waved.

In the car he wore the same sour face he’d had when he returned from talking with Clara in her bedroom. Fear that he didn’t love me any more iced my bare arms. When I first went to Clara’s he had assured me, “Don’t worry about going to bed with other men. It’ll just
make me love you more. You’re doing it to help Daddy.” He hugged me too. Now I remembered and supposed he had thought so at the time. But when face to face with the reality, he found me disgusting. For the first time since I went to Clara’s, I began to feel unclean. I was Lady Macbeth. All the waters in the world wouldn’t wash away the fingerprints of the men who had mauled me. I had been stupid to let him talk me into doing something that would turn him from me. He needed love. He needed a good woman to love him, especially now while he was in trouble with the big boys. But instead of using the brain I was inordinately proud of, I had let him down. His life was so unstable (the big diamond ring and expensive car were symbols of insecurity), and when I had a chance to introduce some order into his world I had fluffed it. It was clear I’d never see him again, since waves of hate radiated from him as rhythmically as the heat trembled up from the highway. We rode in silence until we reached Stockton.

“Where do you want to go?” His question popped like a whip.

“To pick up the baby.”

The steering wheel almost came off in his hand.

When he parked the car, he made no move toward getting out, so I opened my door and had to ask, “Will you take us for a ride?”

“Close the door, Rita. I better talk to you.”

Now it would come. The bad words, the insults, and all rightly placed. I closed the door.

“I talked to Clara. And there wasn’t hardly any money at all. I don’t think you tried.”

“L.D., I did. I tried with all my heart.” Relief flooded my brain. If that was all he worried about.

“Clara says you sit around like a judge, never saying anything to them. And that you talk to the tricks in Spanish like a goddam schoolteacher.”

“L.D., I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to do. But I promise, I’ll try harder. Don’t be angry, Lou.”

“Another thing, you haven’t called me Daddy. All the—I’m supposed to be your daddy.” He was fierce suddenly. “Remember that.”

I said, “Yes, Daddy,” and hated it. Later on I’d be able to tell him the
Electra story and explain why I hated my own father, and expand my theory about prostitutes and their men. I knew he wouldn’t appreciate being thought a pimp and we’d be able to lose “Daddy” from our vocabulary, unless he allowed my son the right to so address him.

“I can’t take you all out today, but here, pay the woman, and here’s ten dollars. You all go to a picture show, but don’t keep him all night. Take him back to her and I’ll come over to your place this evening.”

“Yes, Lou.” He wasn’t angry any longer.

“Daddy?” he prompted.

“Daddy.” I smiled and bided my time.

My baby’s joy at seeing me instantly erased the odor of disinfectant that had clung to the lining of my nostrils. Clara’s house and its inhabitants and its visitors were a puff of smoke sliding behind the farthest hill. I paid Big Mary, and gave no answers to her blunt questions about my new job.

I gathered my son in my arms, and told Mary I’d bring him back in the early evening.

“Ain’t you got time for him to spend one night with you? How come you all of a sudden so busy?”

I couldn’t explain the tenderness of a great love. And under no pressures could I confide to her the month I planned to spend at Clara’s. She’d simply make the common moral judgment, totally missing the finer point of sacrifice and purpose.

The baby, beautiful as a China doll, chattered all the way to the movie, in the movie house and all the way back to my room. He had picked up Big Mary’s run-over-shoes accent. I kept repeating the proper pronunciations as he dropped past tenses and plurals. L.D. was right. I had to try harder. My son needed to be with me. I would read
to him every day and get the long-playing albums for children of “The Little Prince” and “The Ugly Duckling.”

I turned down the path leading to my house, my arms numb to aching with the weight of my son.

“Home, James.”

“My name ain’t no James.”

“My name isn’t James.”

“No. Yo’ name Mother.”

“Your name is Mother.”

“No, my name ain’t no Mother.”

When I tried to put him down he folded his legs up under his body and held on to my neck.

“I’m not going to leave you.” His heart was thudding on my shoulder, so I carried him into the house.

“Rita.” The landlord met me in the hall. “You got lots of long-distance phone calls. From San Francisco. You better call home.”

I forced the baby’s legs and arms from my side and put him on the floor. He set up an alarm of screaming and I stood at the pay phone waiting for someone to answer.

Papa Ford accepted my collect call. “Girl, I been trying to get you.”

Maybe Mother’s aim had been good to the extreme and the bail bondsman’s magic wouldn’t work. I would be very little help, with my own man in trouble at the same time. Of course, there was no contest. Mother came first.

“Your mother’s in the hospital.”

My Lord. For once she wasn’t quick enough. “For what? And how is she?” My calm voice was a lie.

“Operation. Pretty goddam serious. She keeps asking for you. You’d better come home.”

I took my son back to Big Mary and told her I had to leave town for a few days. Baxters never tell family business to outsiders, so I left her with no explanation, and my son screaming his motherlessness out, shut up in a back room.

I thought about L.D., but I had no phone number for him, so I asked
the landlord to tell him that I had to go to San Francisco … trouble in the family.

I turned my thoughts with the Greyhound, toward San Francisco.

—

My mother’s head dipped into the pillow like a yellow rose embedded in a pan of ice. Her forefinger stood sentinel over her red lips.

“Sh. Bailey’s over there.” A small figure, semaphored on a chaise longue in the corner of the hospital room.

“Eunice died today. He’s completely broken up. Today is their one-year anniversary. I got a sedative for him, so he’s been asleep for an hour.”

Her face and voice showed the strain of worry and illness.

“How are you?”

She dismissed her illness. “Just a female operation. The things I had removed have been used and I wouldn’t be needing them again.” She still whispered. “I’m glad you came home, though. Bailey needs us. I don’t think he’ll pull through without one of us around. And I’m going to be in the hospital at least a week. Can you take off from your job?”

“Yes.” Sure could.

“Try and wake Bailey up and take him to the house. Have you got somebody good taking care of the baby?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“And make him something hot. He hasn’t eaten all day. Remember, he’s the only brother you’ve got.”

I sat on the seat beside my only brother and gently shook him. He came out of sleep reluctantly. I called his name and he opened his eyes, sat up, looked around. His eyes found Mother, examined the room, came back to me, stunned. He couldn’t grasp who he was or where he was.

“My?” His childhood name for me was nearly a cry. His eyes knew something was very wrong, but for the first seconds couldn’t remember. The recall split his face open and tears poured down his cheeks.

“Oh my God, My. My. It’s Eunice. They’ve … oh, My.”

I took him in my arms and cradle-rocked his body. The sounds of Mother’s crying mingled with his muffled moans.

“Let’s go home, Bail. Let’s just get to the house and we can talk. Let’s go home, Bail.”

He was eight years old again and trusting. His big wet black eyes looked at me wanting to believe I could do something for his grief. I knew I had no magic, when he most needed me.

“Let’s go home, Bail.” I could hide the shame of my inadequacy in a skillet, and drown out his sobs in the rattle of pans.

We hugged Mother and they cried together for a moment, but he freed himself without my prodding and came with me to the old high-ceilinged house as obedient as a penitent child.

Grief works its way on people differently. Some sulk, or become morose, or weep and scream a vengeance at the gods. Bailey cried for two hours, unintelligible human sounds growled and gurgled from his throat. Then his face was dry. All tears wasted. And he began to talk.

He ate the food I gave him, automatically, greedily, never stopping or slowing the string of chatter that ran from his mouth.

He told me about Eunice’s illness, double pneumonia and tuberculosis, the details of her treatment. The small talk of their sickroom visits. His voice didn’t lower and become dramatic when he related how she began to fail. He spoke of the nurse, new on the floor, who barred his way to Eunice’s room. “Mrs. Johnson? Mrs. Johnson? Oh, she died this morning. They’ve taken her away.”

He rattled about his new tennis rackets and the better courts in San Francisco. The Southern Pacific dining cars and how hot Arizona was.

I let him talk and didn’t try to answer. By morning he began to run down and finally noticed that he was repeating himself. “Oh, My, I told you about that, didn’t I?” He drew words around as protection against his news. I gave him a sleeping pill.

“My, you’re not leaving me, are you?”

“No.”

He balled himself up in Mother’s bed and was asleep in minutes.

I awakened to the splash of water and the sound of Bailey singing in the bathroom.

“Jelly, Jelly, Jelly, Jelly stays on my mi-i-nd.” He could imitate the bass baritone of Billy Eckstine.

“Jelly Roll killed my pappy, and ran my mammy stone blind.”

His voice rolled over joyously in waves. My instant response of elation lasted seconds. He couldn’t have made such a quick adjustment. I joined Papa at the kitchen table and waited.

“Hey, Maya. Fresh coffee? Good morning, Papa Ford.” His face was no wider than my outstretched hand, and the usual rich brown color was dusty like an old chocolate bar exposed to the light. A smile struggled free and limped across his lips.

“Boy, I sure was upset last night. I hope I didn’t worry you too much. And Mom. Goddam, that was inconsiderate of me to go to her hospital room screaming and crying.”

“It wasn’t inconsiderate, Bail, you were upset. You went to your mother. Where else could you go?”

“Yes, but she’s sick herself. And, after all, I’m a man. A man. A man takes his knocks. He doesn’t go running to his mother.”

He poured coffee and drank standing, refusing the chair I pulled out for him.

“Shall I make breakfast for you?” His grin was a little scary, something more than impish, and not yet satanic. “I’ve learned how to make Eggs Benedict.” He turned to Papa.

“Papa, can you make Eggs Benedict? That’s what rich white people eat.”

Papa growled, “I never cooked for white folks, rich or not.”

Bailey poked in the refrigerator, and took out eggs and bacon. He nearly ran to the kitchen closet and was back in a flash with pots, pans, skillets.

“I’ll cook for you, Bailey.” Not knowing how to console him. “I think you need turkey and ham for Eggs Benedict.”

He turned on me in red anger. “Will you please leave me alone? I’m no fucking invalid. I wasn’t the one who died, you know.”

I liked it better when he cried. I could pet him and talk softly and feel as if I were effectively coping with his grief.

“I’m Cuban Pete.” He started singing in a bad Latin accent, “Oh, I’m Cuban Pete.” He Cesar Romeroed around the table, to the sink,
over to the stove, his grin awful. In a few minutes he placed burned bacon, scrambled eggs and lopsided stacks of hot cakes on the table.

“Get your own silverware. I’m the chef, I’m not the waiter.” He straightened up the pancakes with his hands and broke off the ragged edges, trying desperately to make them uniform.

“Sit down, I’ll get your plate, Bailey.”

“I’m not going to eat right now. But you all enjoy yourself.
Bon appétit.”
He walked out of the kitchen. “I want to hear some music.”

In moments, the sound of water splashing in the bathtub mixed with Lester Young’s mellow sax reached the kitchen.

Papa Ford frowned. “He’s had one bath today, ain’t he? He ain’t dirty enough for two baths.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just nervous.” I slammed the sentence out, a barrier against further conversation.

In two days Bailey lost pounds from his already skinny frame and gained in degrees of deception.

Only once did we speak of Eunice.

“If I could have afforded it, I’d have taken her out of San Francisco General and put her in St. Joseph’s. People lie who say you die when it’s your time to die.” He quoted Robert Benton, his favorite at the time. “Hate can be legislated too.”

He opened his face by dint of will. “My, I want a favor.”

“Anything.”

“Eunice’s funeral is tomorrow. After that, I never want to hear her name again.” He waited.

“All right, Bailey.”

“Thank you, My.” He closed in upon himself and smiled the new grimace. I lost part of my brother forever.

I didn’t report to Mother that the next morning he put on fresh white tennis shorts and shirt, thick white socks and tennis shoes, and walked into the church carrying his new tennis racket.

Papa Ford frowned his disapproval. “Your brother sounds crazy to me. He said he’s going to quit his job. This ain’t no time to leave the road. Get his meals free. Tips. He can bring home butter and stuff,
can’t he? Nigger men ain’t got but two outs now, as I see it. Keep on sleeping with Old Lady Southern Pacific, or start sleeping in the streets.” He smirked. “And he crazy, but he ain’t crazy enough for the streets. Shit. He remind me of them Jew boys. He’s smart like them. But them Jew boys git some backing to open up some kind of little business. That’s how they get their start. Any kind of business he try to start going to be against the law, and he have to be sharper than mosquito shit, too. Keep out of jail. He better stay on the road.”