The Future Has a Past (10 page)

“Now . . . I done got some money my mama left me. I got a home. But, I ain’t got no love . . .” She got down on her knees by the chair. “That’s what I want, Lord. Now . . . I know this ain’t love . . . real love . . . but if I pretend realllll hard . . . Lord, you know I ain’t never gonna have no house high up on no hill . . . with no bedroom where I steps into paradise and no high romance. I ain’t gonna get to live on no romantic island with the palm trees wavin at me. Ain’t never gonna have no livin room like no ballroom and no bedroom with all them yards of silk and satin. I ain’t got nothin but myself . . . here in this dusty, cheap little roomin house . . . and a possible man who may change his mind . . . and not come at all . . . Oh, Lord, if he do come, forgive me, but I got to take this chance . . . cause who gonna love me sides my mama and You . . . and my mama’s dead, gone. So, who gonna love me sides You?”

Then . . . there came a knock, soft, but firm, at her door.

She was on her knees as she answered in a voice which sounded all wrong to her. “Co . . . com . . . come in?”

Turtle turns the doorknob slowly, opens the door, sticks his head in first and comes inside the room and tries to hide his back by keeping it close to the wall. “How do?”

Luella did see his hunched back, but tries hard not to let him know as she rises from the floor. “How do?”

“I’m Turtle.”

“I’m . . . Luella.”

Then both of them, shy and embarrassed, start speaking at the same time. Turtle points to the chair, asking, “Can I sit down?” Luella points to the bed, saying, “Sit down, why doncha please?” They laugh nervously, too long, as, still facing her, he set in the chair. Then the laughter stopped and a silence falls between them until Turtle asks, “How old are you, Ms. Luella?”

Luella tried to smile as she answered him, “That ain’t no good question to ask no lady. Why do you ask me that?”

Turtle did smile, “Cause I know you been havin company long enough to say more’n ‘have a seat’!” They laugh together again, grateful for something to fill the void.

Luella, in the middle of her laughter, said, “You can talk, too, you know.”

Turtle’s laughter dwindled as he looked at her, this woman, his date. “Yes, I can talk, but I thought maybe you might want to say . . . somethin special.”

Luella frowned slightly, “Special?”

Now, Turtle frowned, “Well, yes . . . like . . .” He is truly embarrassed and nervous. “If you want me to leave . . . Ms. Ready, the landlady, say she didn’t tell you ALL about me . . . So, if you wants me to go . . .” He got up from the chair and started to the door to leave.

Luella held out her arms as she got up from her seat on the bed. “No . . . I don’t want you to leave. You just got here. Why do you want to leave?” Then she thought it might be because he didn’t like the way she looked.

But, Turtle was already moving back to his chair, smiling as he did so. “I don’t want to leave, but you know . . . sometime . . . people, they look at me and . . . then they just . . .” His voice trailed off.

“They just what?”

Turtle looked directly into her eyes, “They, some people, just want me to hurry up and get away.”

“No, no! You sit down. I don’t want you to leave. Why would somebody want you to leave?”

Turtle took a deep breath, “Don’t you know what ever-body say? A humpback is bad luck?”

Luella set back down on her bed and, with a wave of her hand, said, “I ain’t never heard that in my life and, anyway, if I had, I wouldn’ta believed it!”

As Turtle slowly set back down, he asked, “You wouldn’t? Why?”

Luella shook her head as she laughed softly, “Cause bad luck don’t come in humps . . . It comes in people’s ways.”

Turtle relaxed and set back in the chair. “That’s right! I know that! I seen people have plenty bad luck and I ain’t been nowhere near em!”

Luella relaxed a little more herself and smiled her lovely smile again. “Me, too! Why, there’s a lady, ole Ms. Johnson, she live in Boville, where I come from. She married to a handsome deacon in the church . . . Every time a new baby born there, she scared to look it in the face. Scared that baby is gonna look like Deacon Johnson . . . and most times it do!”

They laughed, together. Then Luella said, “But that ain’t really funny . . . it’s sad.”

Turtle added, “And it ain’t bad luck . . . just a bad deacon!”

They laughed, together, again.

As Luella nodded her head “yes,” saying, “There’s all kinds of bad luck. It mostly comes from bad thinkin. Humps ain’t got nothin to do with it. I ain’t never seen one before and I’m having plenty BAD luck!”

Turtle didn’t laugh, he became serious. “I done seen too much of one.”

Luella sobered at his seriousness. “What’s it look like? What’s it feel like?”

“It don’t feel like nothin, til somebody else see it.”

Softly, Luella asked, “Can I see it?”

Turtle is hurt, embarrassed and ready to run, wishing he had not come after all. But he wanted to stay where he was, too. “Wellll . . . if you want to . . .”

Slowly, Luella got up, held her hand out as she walked over to him and touches it, tenderly. His face showed his pained feelings. This was his! He didn’t want her to see it, much less touch it, and make it more real.

Luella’s voice was very gentle and soft. “It’s warmmm.”

“I’m alive!”

Then, to add misery to his soul, Luella lifted his shirt collar away from his neck and put her hand inside and down his back, still gentle. “Why, that ain’t nothin. Just you got more back than somebody else.”

Turtle looked up at Luella, gratefully. She said, “Now, you’re gonna have all good luck! I have took all the bad luck away. I have so much already, a little more ain’t gonna make it nothin.”

Turtle smiled, still looking up at Luella. “It feels better. Ain’t nobody ever touched me but my mama and my pa and Dora.” Lest Luella think he had a woman, he hastened to add, “Dora my sister. But, it seem like you done had enough bad luck of your own. Why you want some of mine?”

Luella went back to the bed and sat down, dejectedly. “Why not? I got so much of my own, that little bit of yours ain’t gon matter one bit. Beside, I like to see you feel . . . better.”

Turtle, feeling lighter and brighter and happier than he had in years and years, asked, “What kinda bad luck you got? A good-lookin woman like you? You got everything you need to take you anywhere you want to go.”

Luella began to fidget, nervously. “Well . . . I ain’t never been one to talk much . . . But, people? They seem to all be playin some kinda game all the time . . .” She searches for words to explain her thoughts, “A game . . . you . . . can’t get into it, if you don’t . . . fit . . . the things . . . they are. Their . . . rules . . . or somethin.”

Reflectively, Turtle nods his head. “I know those games.”

Luella, caught up in her thoughts, continued, “When I think . . . of all them days I spent . . . alone, cause even if I was with my mama, I still was lonely. Sundays, holidays, night-times, meant for . . . people . . .” She laughed at herself a little as she fidgeted with her fingers. “Well . . . it gave me plenty time to think of all the things I wanted.” She almost whispered, “That I would never have.”

She raised her voice a little and continued, “All the things I wanted. All the things I needed.” Then, in an almost angry tone, Luella finished her thought, “and all the things I had to settle for.” She sighed and the anger seemed to leave her voice as she looked at Turtle. “I had dreams . . . I have dreams . . . but most of them have done gone on away now.” She laughed, lightly, at herself. “See . . . in them books and magazines? They always showed me what I was missin. So I had real big dreams. Them dreams was my only happiness. But . . . it really wasn’t happiness.” She sighed, then smiled, sad, in spite of her trying not to be. “I never liked to look in mirrors after them books.”

Turtle was leaning toward her, listening with all his attention and all his heart.

Luella paused for a moment, then decided to continue expressing her feelings. “You know, I wanted to blive there was someone in this world who wouldn’t think of nobody but me. Wouldn’t make love . . . to nobody else on the side . . . and I wouldn’t either.” She laughed in embarrassment. “Well, I was young then.” She corrected herself, “Younger!”

As if Luella just thought of it, she said, “Some girls get married four or five times! . . . I never even got a Valentine card!”

Turtle’s body jumped as though startled. “But you so pretty . . . them boys in your town musta been blind!”

It was Luella’s turn to be startled, “What you sayin? Are you crazy or something? I am ugly.” She spells it out for him. “UGLY. Ugly.”

Turtle, his voice strong, disagrees with her. “No you ain’t! No you sure ain’t. I done seen plenty women in this city . . . and you ain’t no ugly woman! No sir! You damn nigh beautiful!” Then he lowered his voice, as though ashamed of what he was taking a breath to say. “I don’t like that red dress though.”

Luella was shocked. “You don’t like my red dress? I mean . . . I know it’s torn a little bit, but . . .”

In a stronger voice, Turtle added, “I don’t like them shoes either! Red ain’t your color.”

“It ain’t?”

Turtle softened his voice because he could see her feelings were hurt and he knew she was trying to look nice. “No . . . it ain’t. Maybe a . . . a light rose color . . . or a pale, pale green. Even a light, light blue. Or cream.” Then his voice became serious again. “But, no . . . not red. And I bet you don’t need to wear no wig either.”

Luella’s hand flew up to the bedraggled wig that seemed to set askew atop her head. “It ain’t? I don’t?” She loved the color red. “Not reeeddd?” She challenged him. “How do you know so much bout what’s good bout colors?”

Turtle took a moment to answer, then said, “I done watched the sun rise a lot . . . and I watch it set most every day it’s out. I’m up deep into the night, and I get to see the sky in all the dark, beautiful colors. The clouds are different colors at night, too. I love the black clouds shot through with gray, floating across the sky. In the daytime, I see the grass and the trees . . . changin . . . all the time changin, all year round. I keeps a garden of flowers. Sometime I work it at night, if the moon is bright, and I can still see the colors. I don’t sleep too good, you see.”

Luella didn’t always sleep too good herself, so she wondered why he didn’t. “Why?”

Turtle tilted his head to the side, “You really want to know?”

“Yes, I really want to know cause I don’t sleep too good either.”

Turtle decided to just go on and tell the truth. “Cause I don’t have no woman . . . of my own.”

They were silent as they thought about his answer.

Then Luella said, “Maybe that’s why I don’t sleep too good . . . cause I don’t have no man of my own.”

Turtle waved her words away, “Well, you could get a man . . . but I have a hard time gettin a woman . . . the kind I want.”

Luella waved his words away, “It ain’t all that easy to get a man either.”

Turtle chuckled to hisself, “The funny thing is, some of them who think they don’t want me . . . don’t know I really don’t want them!”

They laughed together, happily.

Luella said, through her laughter, “You know, I never thought of that! Some of the women in my town? They feel sorry for me . . . but I really wouldn’t have the men they got!”

This, of course, interested Turtle. “No? Why?”

“Well, take Mr. Brasen . . . he so lazzzzzy. And Mr. Fred, he always chasin after women; little ones, middle ones and old ones too! Got in trouble once! And Mr. Crimp, he married, but he sleep with everybody in town but his wife!”

Turtle added his two cents, “And the prettiest girls in this city, who feel so hotshot, can be mostly had for twenty dollars! They be sneakin, but even if you sneakin, you still bought! I don’t want that!”

They nod their heads at each other, beaming with smiles.

Luella pointed her finger at him as she smiled, but she was serious. “Now see? A man like you got some sense.”

“I hope so. And if I do, that’s all I got!”

Then, the sense he had made, the words he had said, became clear in another way. She asked him, “But, if you don’t like bought women . . . why did you come up here to me?”

Thoughtfully, Turtle answered. “Well . . . because I know that if you could be bought, Ms. Ready wouldn’t come to me. See . . . one thing, these ladies here . . . don’t fool with me cause . . . I’m sposed to be bad luck, like I told you. But, sides that, she know I don’t fool with them either, cause they can be bad luck, too! To me! So, if she told me . . . about you, then I knew you had to be different from the rest. And looka here, a pretty woman like you, and I get to meet her!”

Disbelief in her heart, amazement in her eyes, Luella asked Turtle with all sincerity in her yearning to know. “Do you . . . really . . . really . . . really think I am pretty?”

Very softly, Turtle answered, “I really, really . . . really do.” Then he stood up and held out his hand to her. “Can I touch you?”

Timidly, bashfully, fearfully, Luella said, “Well . . . sure.”

Turtle restrained hisself, moving unhurried to her, he sat on the bed beside her and reached out a hand to tentatively touch her hair and her face, speaking gently to her. “You feel just like a woman.”

Softly and gratefully, Luella said, “I hope so.” They were silent as he ran his hands over her arm, taking her hands in his. Luella didn’t know what to say . . . or do. So she asked, “What we gonna do?”

“Everything we can!” came the excited answer. “Know what I’m gonna do?”

Extremely interested, Luella asked, “No. What are you gonna do?”

Turtle stood up from the bed, saying, “I’m gonna get us some champagne and . . . and some bar-b-que chicken! I’ll be right back!” He left her side, then turned back to her, “I’m gonna get somethin special for you, too!”

Luella stood, anxious, “Don’t go! You won’t come back!” She took his hand and held it to her face, her eyes pleading, she said, “Don’t go.”

Turtle’s heart like to just burst right there. Somebody was asking him NOT to go. He took his hand from her face and put his arms around her shoulders, pulled her to him and said, “I’m comin back. I might not get to my own funeral, but I sure am goin to get back here! How can I not come back to a woman like you? Just don’t you go away.”