The Matter Is Life (18 page)

Dora’s business now was cookin, feedin and washin for men who worked round the town what didn’t have no wifes. So, she made a livin, fed her girls, worked em too, but kept em in school. And survived. Never wasted a dime. She had plans for her girls. Never did plant nothin on that land after just one time when all the plants died even with all her work on em. Land too hard and full of somethin wouldn’t let them plants grow. It was too long a walk, too, for a tired woman to
make every day. But, still, the land was there, the deeds in her box. Dora willed the town to move toward it, but it was slow.

I don’t have to say times was hard early in this century. Everybody knows that, everybody what was poor. Didn’t have to be no depression, things was just naturly depressed. Money was small. Things didn’t cost much, cause if they did, nobody could of got them but the rich and that is mostly what was happenin anyway. So, people was glad to have what they Needed. Never mind if they got somethin they Wanted or not. NEED … that is what it is … what life is.

Now … Dora had been so taken-up in the girls and their livin, her emotions and things hadn’t bothered her none. But, you know, they always do in the end, if you healthy, young or old, man or woman. Was one man was a customer. Not too old, not too young, round just right, I reckon. He was always starin at Dora as she put food out and took it in, talked to the mens, directed her children. Just stared at her. Well, she wasn’t ugly. Neither was he, I must say. She sure was clean and strong and because her life was goin in somewhat a way she wanted, she felt good and she looked good. Them acres gave her comfort and confidence too.

That man, I done forgot his name, took to bein early at dinner. Dora be workin in her garden, you know she had one. He took to helpin out here and there, just friendly like.

Now … I don’t know bout you … but spring can come and you be workin barefoot in that warm, damp dirt what feels good to you. All God’s work be movin. You see a new plant comin up, a blossom for strawberries or a squash,
anything. A new leaf. Feel the damp dirt after a light rain. Livin things growin and movin round you. Air full of birds and bugs. Dirt full of worms and other little bitty things, all of em movin, doin somethin. Life. And … things have a smell. They smell fresh. They smell like life.

I believe, unbeknownst to Dora, things was happenin like that, inside her. Remember, need is what life is. It’s them needs that turns into wants, sometimes.

Anyway … he helped her … so he could watch her, I bet. He even brought a few flowers to plant, which she never did buy, needin food like she did. He helped and he never did want her to take nothin off his bill for his help. He took the little heavy jobs off her hands. Course, he enjoyed workin in the dirt too. It’s somethin good and real about it, chile.

After a while, sometimes when he didn’t come, Dora took to bein in the middle of standin, choppin, or weedin on her knees, and stop dead still, lookin out in the distance of the sky. Feelin the wind whippin lightly round her legs, her face, her breast. She became conscious she was still a young woman … and there was more to life then children and work. She began to feel her thighs rubbin gainst each other when she be walkin. Felt her body when she bend over or be reachin up or down.

At night, after they done got everything cleaned and put away, one of her daughters who all slept in one room, either Lovedora or Endora, usually leave their bed and go get in they mama’s bed. Now, she sent them back sometime, when it rain. She lay there and listen to the rain beatin on the windows and the roof. She thinkin of life … of that man, you see.

Sometimes, she cry … and don’t know why. She didn’t realize she was lonely, you see. She thought she had too much to do to be lonely. Too many people around. But, I know, you can be lonely right in the middle of everybody in the world. Her tears didn’t wash away that feelin of loneliness and sadness. And all the time, in her heart and tween her tired legs, the passion grew. Til … she began to think of him. Him.

One problem was, Dora knew this man didn’t have nothin. Not even much as she did. She had a little home, a little business and five acres of land. And three growin girls. He probly had children, but she wasn’t interested in that. Everybody could have a baby, they was almost free. He was poor. He, too, had been strugglin to survive in this here world all his life, even fore he left home probly. He didn’t seem to have no roots, couldn’t affort none. Had only a job what somebody could take anytime. She already been through that. She didn’t want him. She didn’t want to want him. But, she knew she wanted that man part of him.

I’m tellin you, you just fool round here and don’t be watchin and ole life will just creep up on you! You be doin somethin you didn’t plan! That must be why folks always be makin plans, tryin to see where they goin and what they doin!

One day, one rainy day again, he didn’t go to his job for some reason. Head hurt, hand hurt, arm hurt, somethin. He came by to check on the garden. The children was in school. They was eight, seven and six years old then.

Dora opened the door without knowin it was him. She was not prepared to see her passion-man like that. The sky behind him so dark with thick, black clouds seem to push
him through the door. The tree in the yard seem to have open arms, tellin her somethin, pushin him in. Was no bird sayin a thing. Just silence in the sound of the rain on the house, on the ground, in her heart. He smiled. She let him in. The little wailin sound in her throat as she opened her arms and took him into them, as he folded his arms around her, was drowned out by the tearing of a cloud by the lightnin. The thunder thundered and shook that little house. Her passion blew open like a volcano and shook her little body.

The time, the sounds, the rain, the silence, the passion, the touches, the thrills, turned into the lovemaking. And such a lovemaking it was!

When he finally left, before the children came home, Dora closed the kitchen. Wasn’t gonna work no more that day. She went back to bed and just lay there, turnin her face to that rainy window and thought, thrilled, dreamed and slept til that next mornin when her normal life returned.

I think Dora should have got up and cleaned up, cause she soon found out she was pregnant. I tried to talk her into havin a abortion, but she wouldn’t. So nine months later she had another baby girl. Because the gettin of this baby was so splendid, she named her new daughter Splendora. She loved the baby, but she didn’t love the man anymore. She wouldn’t even feed him when he wanted to pay. She let him go. Real Life was back with its ugly constant needs … and he was poor.

I thought she shoulda kept that man. You can sleep with money, but it don’t make no thunder and lightnin passion, chile. You got to have a live human body for that. I sure did believe that! In my bones!

Now, her other daughters didn’t like her havin that baby. As they grew up they always counted Splendora as a kind of outsider, you know? Not one of them, cause they knew their father was dead and he couldn’ta made that baby. As they grew up they sometimes told her she wasn’t all part of them. They was jealous of their mother’s love for her, too.

Anyway … Dora lived on, workin and takin care her girls she had such plans for, dreams for. I have a snapshot, a picture of Dora’s house. Over the years the whitewash washed off in the stormin winds and rains. It was soon gray. Some loose planks stickin up and out. Porch a little tilted. Spokes gone from the porch rail. Fence leaning, somehow held up by strong bushes and plants Dora had set in. Some of them spokes gone too.

On the tiltin porch, Dora is standin, young, but leanin over just a bit from work and early strain. Four daughters in a row. Their hair is not straightened, just natural, but combed and brushed, rolled around rags so that they are smoothed, pulled back into soft rolls and pompadours. Tight curly knots at the start of a smooth long neck, pulled tight over tiny delicate ears, no earrings there. Arrow winged black eyebrows over black round and almond eyes that seem to look so deep into the camera, forgetting to smile, all cept Splendora. All lookin into somebody’s camera like they tryin to see into the future. All of em had the same material dresses, gray blue with faded rose flowers in it, a bit raggedy, but clean. Windora’s sewed hers a bit different, kinda stylish and all. But they was all long, to the ankle. No shoes, barefoot. Arms hangin straight down, all cept Splendora. Hers folded cross her chest. Her chest of small buddin busts that in a few years would be full and round.

It seems to be evenin time in the picture, or it’s my dim eyes, or the gray of time. But I see the girls in that picture and they true … they true to life. I see the eyes of what each thought. They was all serious, but I know which way every one of them went. Course I was busy havin babies, right and left. I loved my man and he loved everybody. I didn’t have all his children. But I loved him and I had all that he gave me. I got loaded down with children. They grown and gone now, and … I ain’t got up yet. But, just like I watched mine, I watched them Doras.

Anyway, long with that cookin, Dora took to doin day work for the lady what owned the only little dress shop in town. We had a small partment store, but she carried the nicest dresses for the ladies had more money to spend. I don’t know when Dora slept, guess she tried to stay way from a bed. But I be up runnin round town lookin for my man and his paycheck and I see her lights on all time of night. She be in there sewin or workin on somethin. She taught all them girls to sew, cept Endora. Endora was lazy as they come.

She always tellin them girls, “We goin SOMEWHERE! You all gonna be somethin!” She paid close attention to her daughters, specially after Splendora came and her load was so heavy. She studied each one separate.

Dora knew that Lovedora was a languishin, soft-bodied, soft-minded child, did everything kinda slowly, her mind off somewhere in one of her daydreams. She was named right … she dreamed of love. She try to do whatever you tell her to do, and smile that lazy smile at you, but the thing was never all done. Somebody else had to finish it. She worked at things, but was never really in things, just at em. A gentle,
quiet woman-girl, full of dreams. Dora have to try to talk sense to her bout mens all the time cause the men really liked her. She start taking company early, but she stuck to one man-boy what came to see her a lot. She seem to love everything. Dogs, cats, cows, horses, flowers, trees, dolls, pigs, people, just everything came in her sight, she came to love it. She cried easy if somethin was hurt. She always stoppin doin what she ought to be doin, to go off and hold and hug something what she thought needed her love.

Windora was a strong-willed girl. Watched and studied everything. Could do most everything and do it quite well if she want to. Kinda nervous type, always movin, doing somethin. She the first one started helpin her mama on some of her outside jobs. She was young, but she liked bein at the dress shop and at the tailor’s where she could pick up the scraps of cloth for her mama, or herself to make doll clothes with. She ask questions bout everything. She talked a lot, but it had to be about something. Always kinda thoughtful, interestin talk.

She look at the magazines at the dress shop and when they chance to give her a old one to play with, she guard it with care til she get to the tailor’s, then ask him all them questions bout how to make them things for her dolls. Yea, she had dolls, she and her mama made em. She had paper-dolls too, she made them herself. Drew them dolls and cut em out, then drew clothes and colored em for them dolls too! She had lots of em. She like to make things. She had a bank what she kept hid, even from her mama. Put coins in it somebody outside had give her. Didn’t spend em. Her mama talked to her bout money and business.

Endora was the kind of sickly one. I think she was putting
on most the time cause she hate to do anything. None of em didn’t hardly get to go to school them early days, but they went when they could be spared, which Dora liked to see was often as possible. I think Splendora was bout six or seven years old when Dora made a greement with the teacher in town, who had done gone blind, to clean her house in exchange for two more hours a day to teach her girls extra things, make em study. She said she couldn’t feed no fools. But she couldn’t keep that extra work up too long, so she stopped, and the teacher stopped all cept for Splendora. Splendora had done made a friend! And she really loved that blind teacher, did a lot of nice things for her. They all musta learned cause they could all read and cipher pretty well. Sure could count money and they even taught they mama to read a little too!

Endora was a pretty, smooth-skinned girl. Liked to eat, didn’t like to work. The days she cooked, didn’t nobody want to eat, but they had to, cause they was hungry. She was the one, there usually is one, the other girls joined hands against. But Endora didn’t give a damn. She just lay cross a bed and rest, sulkin. Her mama always talked to her bout bein poor and findin a good strong husband, but Endora didn’t pay boys no mind.

Now, these were all nice-lookin girls, gonna be good-lookin healthy women. But Splendora was splendid. Splendid.

The girl look like somebody drew her. She was built that perfect. She had a glowing, smooth skin. Long, fat hair braided into thick braids restin on her strong little shoulders. Strong, straight back, she never seem to slouch. Serious girl, thinking child, watched everything til she understood
it, then she seem to forget it. She had them piercin eyes when she look at you. And when she asked questions they was never dumb, so you knew the answer better be good. I paid her special mind cause you had to bring your mind with you when you did anything with Splendora. Her mama talk to her bout all of life she knew. Bout what love was and wasn’t. Bout money and the kind of freedom it most gave you. Bout God. Bout mens, all kinds and all colors. Don’t know how Dora knew, spendin all her time workin like she did. Sure wish she hada talked to me fore I picked the wrong one to love.

I was talkin to Splendora and Lovedora one day, bout my man. Dora stopped me, said, “Don’t tell them bout that thing you married to, he ain’t worth a conversation. If you have to, then tell them what’s wrong with him, not what you gonna make out of him, someday!”