The Women of Brewster Place (19 page)

“Must you!” Lorraine turned around from the stove with her teeth clenched tightly together.

“Must I what, Lorraine? Must I talk about things that are as much a part of life as eating or breathing or growing old? Why are you always so uptight about sex or men?”

“I’m not uptight about anything. I just think it’s disgusting when you go on and on about—”

“There’s nothing disgusting about it, Lorraine. You’ve never been with a man, but I’ve been with quite a few—some better than others. There were a couple who I still hope to this day will die a slow, painful death, but then there were some who were good to me—in and out of bed.”

“If they were so great, then why are you with me?” Lorraine’s lips were trembling.

“Because—” Theresa looked steadily into her eyes and then down at the cookie she was twirling on the table. “Because,” she continued slowly, “you can take a chocolate chip cookie and put holes in it and attach it to your ears and call it an earring, or hang it around your neck on a silver chain and pretend it’s a necklace—but it’s still a cookie. See—you can toss it in the air and call it a Frisbee or even a flying saucer, if the mood hits you, and it’s still just a cookie. Send it spinning on a table—like this—until it’s a wonderful blur of amber and brown light that you can imagine to be a topaz or rusted gold or old crystal, but the law of gravity has got to come into play, sometime, and it’s got to come to rest—sometime. Then all the spinning and pretending and hoopla is over with. And you know what you got?”

“A chocolate chip cookie,” Lorraine said.

“Uh-uh.” Theresa put the cookie in her mouth and winked. “A lesbian.” She got up from the table. “Call me when dinner’s ready, I’m going back to read.” She stopped at the kitchen door. “Now, why are you putting gravy on that chicken, Lorraine? You know it’s fattening.”

The Brewster Place Block Association was meeting in Kiswana’s apartment. People were squeezed on the sofa and coffee table and sitting on the floor. Kiswana had hung a red
banner across the wall, “Today Brewster—Tomorrow America!” but few understood what that meant and even fewer cared. They were there because this girl had said that something could be done about the holes in their walls and the lack of heat that kept their children with congested lungs in the winter. Kiswana had given up trying to be heard above the voices that were competing with each other in volume and length of complaints against the landlord. This was the first time in their lives that they felt someone was taking them seriously, so all of the would-be-if-they-could-be lawyers, politicans, and Broadway actors were taking advantage of this rare opportunity to display their talents. It didn’t matter if they often repeated what had been said or if their monologues held no relevance to the issues; each one fought for the space to outshine the other.

“Ben ain’t got no reason to be here. He works for the landlord.”

A few scattered yeahs came from around the room.

“I lives in this here block just like y’all,” Ben said slowly. “And when you ain’t got no heat, I ain’t either. It’s not my fault ’cause the man won’t deliver no oil.”

“But you stay so zooted all the time, you never cold no way.”

“Ya know, a lot of things ain’t the landlord’s fault. The landlord don’t throw garbage in the air shaft or break the glass in them doors.”

“Yeah, and what about all them kids that be runnin’ up and down the halls.”

“Don’t be talking ’bout my kids!” Cora Lee jumped up. “Lot of y’all got kids, too, and they no saints.”

“Why you so touchy—who mentioned you?”

“But if the shoe fits, steal it from Thom McAn’s.”

“Wait, please.” Kiswana held up her hands. “This is getting us nowhere. What we should be discussing today is staging a rent strike and taking the landlord to court.”

“What we should be discussin’,” Sophie leaned over and said to Mattie and Etta, “is that bad element that done moved
in this block amongst decent people.”

“Well, I done called the police at least a dozen times about C. C. Baker and them boys hanging in that alley, smoking them reefers, and robbing folks,” Mattie said.

“I ain’t talkin’ ’bout them kids—I’m talkin’ ’bout those two livin’ ’cross from me in 312.”

“What about ’em?”

“Oh, you know, Mattie,” Etta said, staring straight at Sophie. “Those two girls who mind their business and never have a harsh word to say ’bout nobody—them the two you mean, right, Sophie?”

“What they doin’—livin’ there like that—is wrong, and you know it.” She turned to appeal to Mattie. “Now, you a Christian woman. The Good Book say that them things is an abomination against the Lord. We shouldn’t be havin’ that here on Brewster and the association should do something about it.”

“My Bible also says in First Peter not to be a busybody in other people’s matters, Sophie. And the way I see it, if they ain’t botherin’ with what goes on in my place, why should I bother ’bout what goes on in theirs?”

“They sinning against the Lord!” Sophie’s eyes were bright and wet.

“Then let the Lord take care of it,” Etta snapped. “Who appointed you?”

“That don’t surprise me comin’ from
you
. No, not one bit!” Sophie glared at Etta and got up to move around the room to more receptive ears.

Etta started to go after her, but Mattie held her arm. “Let that woman be. We’re not here to cause no row over some of her stupidness.”

“The old prune pit,” Etta spit out. “She oughta be glad them two girls are that way. That’s one less bed she gotta worry ’bout pullin’ Jess out of this year. I didn’t see her thumpin’ no Bible when she beat up that woman from Mobile she caught him with last spring.”

“Etta, I’d never mention it in front of Sophie ’cause I hate
the way she loves to drag other people’s business in the street, but I can’t help feelin’ that what they’re doing ain’t quite right. How do you get that way? Is it from birth?”

“I couldn’t tell you, Mattie. But I seen a lot of it in my time and the places I’ve been. They say they just love each other—who knows?”

Mattie was thinking deeply. “Well, I’ve loved women, too. There was Miss Eva and Ciel, and even as ornery as you can get, I’ve loved you practically all my life.”

“Yeah, but it’s different with them.”

“Different how?”

“Well…” Etta was beginning to feel uncomfortable. “They love each other like you’d love a man or a man would love you—I guess.”

“But I’ve loved some women deeper than I ever loved any man,” Mattie was pondering. “And there been some women who loved me more and did more for me than any man ever did.”

“Yeah.” Etta thought for a moment. “I can second that, but it’s still different, Mattie. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but…”

“Maybe it’s not so different,” Mattie said, almost to herself. “Maybe that’s why some women get so riled up about it, ’cause they know deep down it’s not so different after all.” She looked at Etta. “It kinda gives you a funny feeling when you think about it that way, though.”

“Yeah, it does,” Etta said, unable to meet Mattie’s eyes.

Lorraine was climbing the dark narrow stairway up to Kiswana’s apartment. She had tried to get Theresa to come, but she had wanted no part of it. “A tenants’ meeting for what? The damn street needs to be condemned.” She knew Tee blamed her for having to live in a place like Brewster, but she could at least try to make the best of things and get involved with the community. That was the problem with so many black people—they just sat back and complained while the whole world tumbled down around their heads. And grabbing an attitude and thinking you were better than these
people just because a lot of them were poor and uneducated wouldn’t help, either. It just made you seem standoffish, and Lorraine wanted to be liked by the people around her. She couldn’t live the way Tee did, with her head stuck in a book all the time. Tee didn’t seem to need anyone. Lorraine often wondered if she even needed her.

But if you kept to yourself all the time, people started to wonder, and then they talked. She couldn’t afford to have people talking about her, Tee should understand that—she knew from the way they had met. Understand. It was funny because that was the first thing she had felt about her when she handed Tee her application. She had said to herself, I feel that I can talk to this woman, I can tell her why I lost my job in Detroit, and she will understand. And she had understood, but then slowly all that had stopped. Now Lorraine was made to feel awkward and stupid about her fears and thoughts. Maybe Tee was right and she was too sensitive, but there was a big difference between being personnel director for the Board of Education and a first-grade teacher. Tee didn’t threaten their files and payroll accounts but, somehow, she, Lorraine, threatened their children. Her heart tightened when she thought about that. The worst thing she had ever wanted to do to a child was to slap the spit out of the little Baxter boy for pouring glue in her hair, and even that had only been for a fleeting moment. Didn’t Tee understand that if she lost this job, she wouldn’t be so lucky the next time? No, she didn’t understand that or anything else about her. She never wanted to bother with anyone except those weirdos at that club she went to, and Lorraine hated them. They were coarse and bitter, and made fun of people who weren’t like them. Well, she wasn’t like them either. Why should she feel different from the people she lived around? Black people were all in the same boat—she’d come to realize this even more since they had moved to Brewster—and if they didn’t row together, they would sink together.

Lorraine finally reached the top floor; the door to Kiswana’s
apartment was open but she knocked before she went in. Kiswana was trying to break up an argument between a short light-skinned man and some woman who had picked up a potted plant and was threatening to hit him in the mouth. Most of the other tenants were so busy rooting for one or the other that hardly anyone noticed Lorraine when she entered. She went over and stood by Ben.

“I see there’s been a slight difference of opinion here,” she smiled.

“Just nigger mess, miss. Roscoe there claim that Betina ain’t got no right being secretary ’cause she owe three months’ rent, and she say he owe more than that and it’s none of his never mind. Don’t know how we got into all this. Ain’t what we was talkin’ ’bout, no way. Was talkin’ ’bout havin’ a block party to raise money for a housing lawyer.”

Kiswana had rescued her Boston Fern from the woman and the two people were being pulled to opposite sides of the room. Betina pushed her way out of the door, leaving behind very loud advice about where they could put their secretary’s job along with the block association, if they could find the space in that small an opening in their bodies.

Kiswana sat back down, flushed and out of breath. “Now we need someone else to take the minutes.”

“Do they come with the rest of the watch?” Laughter and another series of monologues about Betina’s bad-natured exit followed for the next five minutes.

Lorraine saw that Kiswana looked as if she wanted to cry. The one-step-forward-two-steps-backwards progression of the meeting was beginning to show on her face. Lorraine swallowed her shyness and raised her hand. “I’ll take the minutes for you.”

“Oh, thank you.” Kiswana hurriedly gathered the scattered and crumpled papers and handed them to her. “Now we can get back down to business.”

The room was now aware of Lorraine’s presence, and there were soft murmurs from the corners, accompanied by furtive glances while a few like Sophie stared at her openly. She
attempted to smile into the eyes of the people watching her, but they would look away the moment she glanced in their direction. After a couple of vain attempts her smile died, and she buried it uneasily in the papers in her hand. Lorraine tried to cover her trembling fingers by pretending to decipher Betina’s smudged and misspelled notes.

“All right,” Kiswana said, “now who had promised to get a stereo hooked up for the party?”

“Ain’t we supposed to vote on who we wants for secretary?” Sophie’s voice rose heavily in the room, and its weight smothered the other noise. All of the faces turned silently toward hers with either mild surprise or coveted satisfaction over what they knew was coming. “I mean, can anybody just waltz in here and get shoved down our throats and we don’t have a say about it?”

“Look, I can just go,” Lorraine said. “I just wanted to help, I—”

“No, wait.” Kiswana was confused. “What vote? Nobody else wanted to do it. Did you want to take the notes?”

“She can’t do it,” Etta cut in, “unless we was sitting here reciting the ABC’s, and we better not do that too fast. So let’s just get on with the meeting.”

Scattered approval came from sections of the room.

“Listen here!” Sophie jumped up to regain lost ground. “Why should a decent woman get insulted and y’ll take sides with the likes of them?” Her finger shot out like a pistol, which she swung between Etta and Lorraine.

Etta rose from her seat. “Who do you think you’re talkin’ to, you old hen’s ass? I’m as decent as you are, and I’ll come over there and lam you in the mouth to prove it!”

Etta tried to step across the coffee table, but Mattie caught her by the back of the dress; Etta turned, tried to shake her off, and tripped over the people in front of her. Sophie picked up a statue and backed up into the wall with it slung over her shoulder like a baseball bat. Kiswana put her head in her hands and groaned. Etta had taken off her high-heeled shoe and was waving the spiked end at Sophie over the
shoulders of the people who were holding her back.

“That’s right! That’s right!” Sophie screamed. “Pick on me! Sure, I’m the one who goes around doin’ them filthy, unnatural things right under your noses. Every one of you knows it; everybody done talked about it, not just me!” Her head moved around the room like a trapped animal’s. “And any woman—any woman who defends that kind of thing just better be watched. That’s all I gotta say—where there’s smoke, there’s fire, Etta Johnson!”

Etta stopped struggling against the arms that were holding her, and her chest was heaving in rapid spasms as she threw Sophie a look of wilting hate, but she remained silent. And no other woman in the room dared to speak as they moved an extra breath away from each other. Sophie turned toward Lorraine, who had twisted the meeting’s notes into a mass of shredded paper. Lorraine kept her back straight, but her hands and mouth were moving with a will of their own. She stood like a fading spirit before the ebony statue that Sophie pointed at her like a crucifix.