The Future Has a Past (3 page)

Part I

Life is so big, so big . . . so huge, with so many things in it sometimes you wonder why some people get so little out of it and others find a way to get so much. But, then, I reads a lot and I read where your character is your destiny. Well, that means that the life that makes up that character is just too downright important not to think about.

But, is it something else, too? Something born inside you, that shapes and sifts the things that happen to you when you are young? Things that shape your thoughts about life and how you reacts to it? Even your dreams? Your choices? Now, I have seen a lot of things in my life and I know most everybody has a dream to love somebody and be loved by that somebody in return. That may go to character too! Like, how lonely are you? How much in need are you? After your character is born and grown, how slim or how great are your chances? For happiness?

Luella cried last night. Again.

This town is a little, ole place, I reckon like a many another little ole town in the world. A few well-off, maybe wealthy rich folks and a heap of poor folks. The people who has the most live on one side of town and us, we live over on this side of town. They white, we black.

But we have a clean little town on these four or five blocks; not all of it, but most of it. Cause some folks you can’t teach em nothing much; but that kind live on both sides of town.

Lining our streets we have great big ole tall, beautiful trees. Some planted by our grandfolks or our parents, so they old, old and big and wide and beautiful. They set off the streets with the little, mostly wood houses set back from the street. And peoples here take good care of their lawns and all. Plant flowers and such.

But it seems like it’s a old folks town. Ain’t too much to do after your day’s work but eat and sit out on the porch til you go to bed. Young people leave here bout soon as they get out’a school. Going somewhere else to college or something, or just going somewhere else, period.

I still live in my parents’ home, rest they souls, they dead now, both of em. Me and my husband took care our parents til they died. I married after I graduated school. Had children; they grown and gone now too. Husband dead; worked hisself to death. Sometimes I ask myself: For what?

Anyway, I’m alone now. Yes, sir. And I get lonely . . . sometime . . . but I’m so glad not to have nothing to do but what I want to do that I just keep to myself and mind my own business. I ain’t old yet so I work two days a week, sometimes only one; just depends how I feel.

See, it’s too hot here to get too busy at anything in the summertime. Even the flies and the mosquitoes buzz a minute, then sit and rest a couple of times on their way to bite something. It’s that hot! Yes, mam! I work my yard, food and flowers, in the evenings or early mornings. Once that sun near bout hit the middle of the sky, I’m gone on in and pulling my shades down. And in the winter it’s too cold to think of bein lonely when you trying to keep that wood stacked outside and in the house and finding ways to keep from going outside. Sides, I read books. I always did love books. They keep my mind full.

My neighbor Luella cried last night. Again.

See, some of these little houses sit mighty close together and sometime you be in your neighbor’s house without trying to be. Luella’s family house sits on the corner of Hope Street and Wayward Lane, and my house is right next to it on Hope Street. Her other neighbor is Mattie, she on Wayward Lane. My house has a long backyard, so my land runs the length of Luella’s and Mattie’s. All these houses started out belonging to our parents. Now . . . I am not a nosy person, but I can get interested sometime. A little fence and a thin wall . . . things carry.

Luella cried last night. Again.

Luella’s mother, Sedalia, was in the same class in school with me and Mattie. She was a nice girl who could have been fast; if you know what I mean. Cause she was cute and the boys teased her a lot. She was a thin, nervous-type girl, always watching everything and everybody but her books. I loved books, but Sedalia seemed to like boys more, leastways one or two. She was poor, a poor family, but we was all poor. Don’t care what you say though, she washed them two dresses she had so they was clean every day she came to school cept one or two times her daddy had beat her so bad she could hardly move. But she made it to school in a dress, then torn and mended by unlearned hands, but clean. I magine she rather be at school than at home no matter which way she had to come.

Oh, she worked too, from the earliest days, helping her mother wash clothes for others. Her mother was a thin, nervous woman, too. Sickly. Her father looked strong, but he drank; a lot. Sedalia was their only child cause they just didn’t seem to be able to make any more children. Prob’ly was a good thing.

Then Sedalia started doing other folks’ clothes on her own. Was always two or three big tin tubs half full of clothes sitting out back of the house. And she takin care of babies or the neighbors, whenever she could, cause they poor too. Her mama took the money, had to, cause her daddy didn’t provide. But, enough of that, cause I done had enough of sad songs. Most everybody got one to sing.

But, now, I members just plain as day, we were in our last month of school and everybody was getting ready for the prom, such as it was. But, Sedalia, she knew she wasn’t going because she had no prom clothes to wear. Nobody had asked her to go with them anyway. Scared to, I guess, scared of her papa.

The night of the prom Sedalia came anyway, still in one of her mended dresses. But, she didn’t come in the brightly lighted, decorated gym where the prom was held, she stood outside, watching everybody else go in. When it seemed everyone was in, she sat on the grass, just looking at the building, listening to the blaring music, I guess.

Some of the boy-men, after a few stolen drinks of somebody’s cheap wine, hatched a trick-plan to send a fellow out to play a little joke on Sedalia and ask her to dance on the grass. One of the boys she had liked and stared at all the time while he was with other girls at school volunteered to go do it. I’m shamed not one of us girls spoke up to shame them from doing it, I guess we wanted to laugh too. Thought it was all in fun and I even thought she might like to dance at her prom even if it was outside on the grass. It must take common sense to be a decent person, cause none of us had any.

That boy, Wiley, went out there and a flustered, needy, pitiful Sedalia smiled up at him and when he held out his hand, she reached for it. He was, maybe, supposed to run off then, but he didn’t. Maybe cause of the tears in her eyes, but he didn’t run off, he danced with her. Slowly, even though the music was a swing dance. He must have made her very happy because hope rose in her little wrung-out heart and when he stayed to dance a second time, she clung to him, even as he danced her across the green grass to the darkened trees, into the black of the night.

We few who had watched, finally lost interest when we couldn’t see them no more and we went back to our own heartthrobs and dancing. I was with my future husband, chile.

When Wiley finally came back in, a little rumpled with grass sticking to his clothes a bit, he was smiling. A few people gathered round him to hear and laugh. He sure could talk, that boy could. He had us laughing so hard, til I realized Sedalia was still out there by herself and I got sad for her. I went to look out the window to see if she had enjoyed being part of the prom anyway, but didn’t see her anywhere; she was gone and I could only see the blackness of the night off up under them trees.

Then . . . graduation was over. Sedalia didn’t attend, but I thought it might be because of a graduation dress. In all that flurry of school ending and life, at last, beginning, I forgot about her because soon I was sayin good-bye to my fiancé, my beau, and going off to that junior college my folks had saved so hard for.

When I came home for vacation, I saw Sedalia. I saw her walking home from the big market in our area, owned by a white man. Lord, she was big with child. I ran up to her, like a fool, asked her, “Sedalia! When did you get married? Did you marry Wiley?”

Sedalia stopped and shifted her brown paper bags and just looked at me. Hard. With angry, hurt eyes. She never answered me. She just turned and continued on her, now weighted, uncomfortable way.

I learned Sedalia had her baby at home. A girlbaby. That was Luella. Her mother helped her with the cord cutting and such, while her father cussed her out. Sedalia gave birth as she cried. Wiley didn’t show up to see his baby girl. Never. When Sedalia got up from there she just went right on outside and began her life of bending over them tin tubs washing clothes for a living for her and her baby, Luella. By herself. I heard Wiley left town bout that time.

Now Mattie . . . Mattie was fast as they come. She was a nice girl, but a fast girl too! She was cute as a button and the boys surely liked her and she liked them back. I think she been married two or three times now. Got about five kids; three of her own, grown and gone out the house now (cept off and on), and two grandchildren. But, she don’t have no real man. Yes, she’s alone now. Raising them children for her daughters. Oh, she has a man-friend, but he don’t stay there much. He says it’s too many children and too much noise for him. Mattie had plenty brothers and sisters, a big family. But Mattie done run them all away now, cause she needs that house. They all still kinda friends, but Mattie done let them know there ain’t no room in that house for them. They tried to sell it a few times since the parents died, but Mattie goes down to that city hall and cry and slobber and yell all over them white folks and they want her to leave so bad, they give her her way.

Anyway, two years of junior college was enough for me. I was closer than ever with my fiancé-beau and it seemed like I was pregnant, so we got married. He had a decent job and I got a job as an assistant teacher of kindergarten. We moved in with my parents cause I’m an only child myself and I didn’t want to leave my mama no how! It’s what people do in this little town anyway, cause we need to put our money together to keep the family going and keep the taxes and upkeep on the house they done sacrificed for already. You know, family.

As I be going to work or something, I would see Sedalia going out with baskets of washed and pressed clothes and coming in with bags of dirty clothes. I had Saturday and Sunday and holidays off; she didn’t, except for church on Sundays. That preacher kept her coming to atone for her “sins.” But, she would have gone anyway. She told me often, “God is the only friend I have, sides my mama, sometimes.”

Her mother still tried to work, but she was tired and she was sick. Then she began to drink a bit herself; weary and disgusted I guess.

Then Sedalia’s father died. He got a pauper’s funeral because they used the little insurance money for a down payment on that house they had been renting that was already falling down.

The years continued to be hard years, passing slowly, for them. Then when Luella was about seven years old, Sedalia’s mother died. Sedalia did use the little insurance money to bury her mother as best she could. It was a decent funeral and, Oh! how Sedalia held on to that little wooden coffin her mother was in. Seemed she hadn’t held on to her mother enough when she was alive cause they was too busy surviving, but, to me? . . . There is always, always, time to take hold of the ones you love! Make yourself think about them! Do it! Fore it’s too late!

Of course they went on living in that house. That was their home! It was rather decrepit now, cause never no man come to see them, but the preacher sometime. But he never ate there so that will tell you about their money and their times.

Sedalia still worked hard, even harder because she took over her mother’s jobs. And when Luella was about nine or ten, Sedalia began to work her too. Luella missed a lot of school. No one ever bothered Sedalia about it because Sedalia would look at you with those hard, red-brown eyes and that deep frown on her thin face and tell you right where you could go in a hurry . . . and stay!

It was natural for me to watch Luella as she grew up. She was a real sad little girl who tried to smile. And when she did smile, her whole body smiled, she was so happy for the kind attention. She was not thin like her mother because Sedalia did feed her own and she kept a good kitchen. Sedalia even got that house painted, one side at a time, every six months or so, until it was all white at last and if one side was brighter for a while, then another, well . . . so what?

I had younger children and Luella seldom got to have playtime, but I gave her books so she could sort of keep up with something. I had cousins about her age and when I gave her dresses they had outgrown, I would get that smile as she pressed them to her little, plump body. Luella would run home with the dresses and things, then she would come back with them in her arms, quietly crying and say, “My motha’dear say she don’t need no char’ty. We doin alright with God’s help.”

So, I began to get her to do little chores for me, sweep the porch and stairs Saturday mornings, things like that, and I would pay her. Sedalia never sent that money back.

I knew Luella liked other children, even little boys, child-like, you know, but Sedalia hated everybody but the preacher and no one could visit that house. Sedalia ran them off if they happen to forget and come visit anyway. Luella would watch them leave, looking through the windows as long as she could see them, then just looking out the window at nothing until her mother called her for chores or something. I had seen her with her hands on her narrow hips, and heard her when I couldn’t see her, say, “You betta remember what I’m tellin you, girl! Leave peoples alone! Ain nobody ever gonna love you but me and yourself! You is ugly! Just ugly, that’s all! They just gonna take vantage of you, leave you with somethin you don’t need! Nor want! It’s just you and me! Blive that! Cause you ugly and your mama is all that’s ever gonna care bout if you eat or live! Me! So you keep your eyes on me and offa them boys! And them dumb girls, they don’t mean you no good neither! They’ll do mean things to you if you don’t watch um!”