The Matter Is Life (15 page)

I moved out Wallace house. I didn’t want nothin from there. Not even the house either. Wasn’t nothin there noway, but pain and sufferin. Mr. Evers rented me and my children another one for a little while, til he could buy us one. Ooohhh, yes! I liked Mr. Evers a whole lot now!

I don’t know what I would have done without him. He helped to give me knowledge and helped me with money. A person needs their marriage partner to be a friend sometimes. See, a older man that’s still good is hard to find. And a good man that’s older with some sense is hard to find, cause they usually all taken. Catch you a young one, good and with some sense, you done got you ten gold stars from heaven! That goes for good women too! Sometimes they hard to find too!

Now, it’s my fillin station. We work there, Mr. Evers and Mrs. Evers, side by side. My children are happier, cause it’s peaceful in our home. And sides that, it’ll be their station one day. They can even plan on college now. They got a brand-new little brother now, too. I named him “Fore” cause his last name is “Evers.”

The only thing is … the other day my son from Wallace was going to do something and I told him not to do it. But he did it anyway! Now, I know I wasn’t able to stop his daddy from goin under my dress to get him, but I also know I ain’t havin another Wallace comin out from my own dress
for me to raise and live with! I whipped that boy so hard, Mr. Evers had to stop me.

Mr. Evers said, “Quit whippin that boy, Ella Lee. That ain’t Wallace you whippin!”

I told Mr. Evers right back, “He MY son and I know what I am doin!” See, I blive if a whippin is right, if they can feeeel it, you may not have to whip that child again for the same thing. And that might mean his life! Who gonna want him if he like Wallace? Not me! And I’m his mama. So he got whipped.

This morning, when I told him not to do something … Well … he let “something” alone.

And Wallace. Well, his one dream now is a drink and a place to lay his head at night. Even his butcher daddy is sick of him. He stay drunk all the time now. He is killin hisself. Just killin hisself!

Everytime I accidently see him … I always tell him, “Don’t do that to yourself Wallace. Don’t drink yourself to death.” Yes, I tell him not to do it … BUT.…

E
verybody talkin bout how Time is such a great, forever, long thing, makes me wonder why the little piece of life we get is such a short one. I know I could use a couple hundred years more, cause the time you do get, ain’t nothing but enough to show you what you oughta have done with the time you done already had. Then, you be done got to the end of your life and ain’t had time enough to really, really use what you done learned. No Lie!

Like in the beginnin, when I was born? I was a beautiful bouncing baby boy! Then I was a pretty youngster growing up and a good-lookin handsome man when I was grown finally to be a man. I know what I’m sayin. No Lie!

My mama say the first thing I looked at in this world was the female nurse. I knew at that minute I loved women. Been lovin em ever since. No Lie!

I learned about sex at a late age, bout eleven or twelve years old. I took to it right away! When I got to be bout nineteen or twenty years old I was Jamming everything would stand still long enough.

I had done learned the cardinal rules from them old men, and some fathers, who tell all the young boys how to grow up to get to be smart young men. They tell you all kind of things. I can’t remember all of em, but some things was, “You don’t need nothin fat but a bankroll.” Or “You don’t need nothin black but a cadillac!” Even “You don’t never fool with nothin old but gold!” And “Don’t never fool with no yellow woman, they evil. They sleep with their fists balled up!” And “Ain’t nothin right about white women but their money!” Or “If they brown, keep em down!” All such a stuff like that forms many a boy’s education when it comes to women. We learn it from the old men almost while we takin milk from our mama’s breast. My brother, he’s older than me, he laughed at them old men, but me, I listened to em! And learned!

Now, this woman tellin you my story don’t like me to talk like this, but when I looked at my private piece one day, I named him “Beau Jam.” Beau Jam! Well, that’s cause that’s what I was doin, you see. Jammin everything I could. All I thought of, morning, noon and night, was women. That stuff filled my head. No Lie! If I could’a made love to myself, I would’a! I’d kiss it if I could! I loved my body cause I loved makin love with it!

Remember from school, that story bout the stepmother?
And that mirror, mirror on the wall? Well, all my early life I looked for one of them beautiful mirrors for me to look in. I finally found one and had to pay bout $400 for it! It was worth it! It was so beautiful it made me more handsome. I have carried that mirror with me everywhere I been. Still got it! Yea, I loved my looks!

The women loved me, too! Well, liked me, I guess, cause I never stayed long enough for none of that love stuff. No. No. I had to keep movin on to some place new. There’s too many women in the world to stay too long with just one of em! No Lie!

Sides, I like the romance part at the beginnin. That’s the best part. The beginning. I like that eye business, when you first meet somebody, or you spot em cross the way. You can tell, too, sometimes by just lookin at the lonesome in her face, the need in her eyes, just how soon she gonna say yes and how long it will take to be in her bed! No Lie! You can even tell by the way she’s built, just where everything is gonna be! Now, that’s the truth.

Yea, I like that eye business. Then comes the “talkin that talk” that’s kinda fly and witty and sweet. Excites your nerves some, upsets you in the right way. Sometimes, tho, they can turn you off right at the start! Didn’t too many turn me off tho, cause I knew I wasn’t gonna stay too long no how. So what I care how dumb she was, or how anything she was? My brother was always lookin for a “good” girl. He sure was a fool. What you gonna do with a good girl?

Anyway, when you like em, it’s the best, more fun. No lie! But you already know that.

Then … them little accidental touches start. Them
brushes of the bodies. Yeasssss. You can tell how a woman gonna be in her lovemakin like that sometimes.

Then, you finally gets to the kisses. The first one is always sweet … always sweet. Cause, see, she think you is her future husband. While I would be counting the time, she be seein a husband, maybe. After the kisses start, it ain’t gonna be long then fore you get what I came for. See, I believe in the hereafter … and I know what I am here after! I get it too! These ladies have changed for the better. I like this liberation stuff! These new liberated ladies will do most anything to get what they want!

Sometime, after the lovemaking, I be happy awhile, cause she be happy, you see. She be playin house. Shopping for food, cooking them nice meals, buying some nice little things for me. Like house slippers to be used round the house. Make me feel at home so I can think I want to live with her in holy matrimony. Yes … everything be nice, real nice. Warm and cozy. You can get all you want! My brother wasn’t gettin hardly any, the kind of woman he looked for! Sometimes you could get money too. But I didn’t always look for that.

Then … things always begin to change. Cause they just got to ask that one bad question. “Do you love me?” That comes bout the second night you stay with her. Well, hell! You got to say yes! I did! Cause maybe I wasn’t through. Then they keep askin it, and it’s something some women feel and know cause some of em didn’t blive me. They want me to get married and prove it! So I knew it was time to go … and that’s what I did.

I members some of em start demanding things. Like proof of my love. Wellll, that change things right there. Soon
… I start being a little late when I meet em, go visit. Then a lot late, cause they don’t raise up off that love stuff. Why can’t a woman be satisfied with a little lovin from a good man?

Then, she want to know who else is in my life. My life! Hell, do she really think I’m going to tell her? No, Lord. Not and mess up all my good things for Beau Jam!

So then I start not showing up at all. Cause it ain’t no fun no more. They done messed it up! She done took all the laughter and joy out of the thing. She got to pout and fuss before you can make love. That make the love-makin sad. So, soon, I ain’t goin there no more at all. Just drop it, cause I ain’t got time to beg and fuss bout no lovin. It’s another one out there who ain’t pouting and fussin. They ain’t hard to get cause they lookin for love … and they don’t always can tell what it look like, so I get in a whole lotta doors with a imitation key. Ohhhh, Man! That was fun! No Lie! Well, It sure felt like fun. My brother, that fool, didn’t have but one girl then.

Now … you leavin the woman alone cause you don’t want to fuss, then she don’t want to leave you alone. Calls you, say, “Come by my place,” stuff like that. You know what they want when they say, “Pleeeeeassssssss?” But by that time I be done sized up some other woman and I be gone on a new thing. Then I look up one day and the same thing done happened with the new thing … and I got to move on again.

Wellll, a lotta time in my life passed like that. Just going long havin fun. Hell, I was young. Didn’t think too much about time. I looked up one day, seemed like only a year had passed, but it was ten of em and I was thirty years old. Had a
few babies behind me and a whole lotta pretty women. Ain’t gonna tell you bout them ugly ones, but they sure-nuff got somethin what makes them look beautiful sometime. No Lie!

My brother had done married his woman. Wasn’t he nothin?! I laughed at him. Wastin all his health and good lovin on one woman! Havin babies. He was tryin to go to college at that time too! He wasn’t havin no fun!

Well, I didn’t marry bout them babies. I told them women not to have em cause I wasn’t no marryin man and had a lot to do in my life fore I could be a daddy to anybody. They went on and did it anyway! So it ain’t my fault. I told em that was their business, not mine. So … I still didn’t get married. Some called me “irresponsible,” but I don’t care! I was too smart for that! What I really was, was irresistible! Noooo lie.

Noooo … I finally left town. Moved to a bigger city. More pick and choosing.… Lord, I’ve known some pretty women in my days. And, quiet as it’s kept, I’ve known some good ones too! I … think of them sometime. Sometime … I think of them kids, too. They don’t even know their own daddy. Somebody told me one day, maybe them kids was lucky, I know they was just havin fun teasin with me tho. I like to think it’s sad them kids will never know me.

Anyway, I don’t like to talk about that … cause it’s too sad.

Anyway, I went through that new town just like the last one. Had me a BALL!! Had a good job, a nice apartment. Furnished it off to a living T and I LIVED! You hear me? I lived! I had a wardrobe would burn your eyes up! Yes, I did! No Lie! Man, a woman couldn’t turn me down if she tried.
But they never did try. Not too many of em anyway. I was somethin!

Those women I met in those years when I was between thirty and forty years old had more money and liked to do things for me. Was good to me. But it got to the place I couldn’t tell the new ones where I lived cause shit just kept poppin up.

I got shot once. Yea, some fool woman shot me. Me! And all I was doing was makin her feel good! Some women is a fool!

I got cut two, three times. I can show you! No Lie! It’s some women you better look out for, cause they don’t play! They spend that money or cook that food or clean your house and wash your clothes enough and you better be where they want you to be when they want you to be there. And that’s no Lie!

Anyway, I looked up one other day and I had two, three more kids by two, three different women, had had to move from the place I lived bout five or six times. Got put out by the landlord once for some woman was disturbing the peace. It was her fault. Cause I never disturb nothing cept sheets. She didn’t have no business comin by my place without callin noway! I already had the company I wanted for that night! I don’t like to fuss and fight. Later on she say she just had the blues. What’s that song say the blues ain’t nothin but a woman cryin for her man? What she spect to have when she got me? I understood her, but she still shoulda called!

Guess I just got something these women can’t live without. Gets good to em! Man, they won’t let go! No Lie! Ole Beau Jam.

Sometimes tho.… I remember one night. I went out one night and I looked up and seen one of the prettiest women you ever want to see in life! No Lie! And … that pretty woman didn’t give me no hard time, no long time, to catch her either! Man, Beau Jam was in seventh heaven.

But I didn’t spect no problems cause I was dressed to the last inch. I member I had on some pale, pale yellow gaberdine pants, clean and sharp. Had a pair of Stacy Adams shoes such a light tan color they just seem to match them pants perfect. Had on a pale green silk shirt with my ascot. Yea, I wore them! Seen em in a magazine and liked em, so I got some. I had money. Anyway my ascot was patterned gold and dark green, and my jacket was a forest green, rough wool fabric. I was sharp! No Lie! Man, I was clean! No Lie!

She said we couldn’t go to her place, so … against my new law I had for myself, cause this woman was too fine to let get away over some silly law, I took her to my place. Picked up a fifth of scotch on the way, good scotch too. Rushed in, changed my bed for this pretty woman while she got the ice and the glasses, threw a little cologne on the hair on my chest, put on my loungin jacket, silk, and strolled on in to the feast. Ohhhhh, lord.

Wellll, turned out it wasn’t such a hot piece of feast after all. I really could have done without it, easy. Sorry I didn’t. She left later that night takin some of my best cologne with her, stole it. I don’t know where she went or how she got there cause I didn’t give a damn. It was that kind of lovin, you see. Then, bout two, three days later, when I had to go to the doctor cause you can always tell when you got a problem … I found out I had a case of syphilis! I sure did want to know where to find her! No lie! Cause she messed up
my life!! I mighta not never been able to make no more babies! And I’m a man! I need to be able to make babies! Sides that, I had done made love to two other ladies of mine I knew. And now, all hell was gonna break loose if I told them! No Lie! I could’a whipped that woman’s ass! Yea, I do that sometime too! You have to teach a woman somethin sometime! I sure will whip one! My brother, he always talkin to his wife. That make women think you weak!