When I get married I could be Mrs. Cora Sue Betsey Anne Calhoun Eisenhower. I could marry the President, or maybe even Duke Ellington. That would make me a Duchess. Duchess Cora Sue Betsey Anne Calhoun Ellington. If one of them died I could marry Bobby Jackson from the eighth grade, but he’s so colored, even I recognize that. No, I’ma stick with Eisenhower or Ellington. Oh, but what about “Sugar” Ray Robinson? He’s so handsome. He’s so sharp. Mrs. Cora Sue Betsey Anne Calhoun Brown “Sugar” Robinson. Sounds good to me. I’d still have to have my own career, maybe a philosopher or an actress like Dandridge or Eartha. An intellectual like Mama should have married W.E.B. DuBois. I wonder why Mama didn’t marry ol’ W.E.B.? He wasn’t half so dark as Daddy and to my knowledge he didn’t play the drums every morning, either. But there’s no telling what can get on a person’s mind when they’re in love. Mama must just love Daddy to death the way she be screaming at him sometimes. But I like my daddy too, I just can’t marry him cause then what would Mama do? When I marry the President I shall call Eugene to be my escort cause “Ike” will have to go visit some troops about the colored and I’ll have a big party for all the colored who live in Little Rock, Arkansas, with barbeque and cannons and lotsa root beer, just for the colored.
I’m Miss Cora Sue Betsey Anne Calhoun Brown, soon to be married to a Negro man of renown. There’s Cab Calloway. Machito. Mongo Santamaria. Tito Puente. Colonel Davis. Nasser. Nkrumah. James Brown. No, that won’t do, cause I’d be Mrs. Brown-Brown. And what about Eugene Boyd? I’ll elope, that’s what. Marry him first and then I’ll tell him about the President and all.
“Betsey, I thought I told you to turn off that mess!” Jane meant business this time.
“Daughter, there’s no need to raise your voice this time of night,” Vida sighed from the parlor.
“Betsey’s still downstairs, Mama. I saw her,” Sharon cried out.
“There’s no need to tell on people just to be telling on them,” Greer responded matter-of-factly to Sharon’s brilliant espionage.
Jane slithered underneath her husband’s torso. “Nobody had to tell me anything. You’ve got Betsey thinking she’s the queen of the blues, but I got news for you, buddy.”
Greer fell asleep to dreams of perfect sutures and Jane rubbed her left eye once more. Her left eye always jumped when something was amiss. A mess. Her life was a mess. Her left eye was jumping. “Give me a hot dog and a barrel of beer” kept running through her brain. Betsey musta gone to bed. That hellish music was off downstairs. Yet Bessie Smith was going on in her head. She wisht her eye would stop jumping like that. What could possibly be the matter? There wasn’t a soul stirring in the Brown house. Quiet as it could be. Too quiet. Why’d he fall asleep. Damn hospital. “The joint is jumping, it’s really jumping” rambled through Jane’s sleep.
Besides Betsey there was no one about except Vida, who was singing on Jesus in her bedroom. “Jesus Is My Beloved” Vida sang as Betsey was moving her bags down the back stairs to the side porch so she could make off to Mrs. Maureen’s insteada going to that simple-ass school one more day. She had everything she needed. Late in the night with the flashlight reserved for tornadoes and blizzards, Betsey had picked The Best of Nat King Cole, Etta Sings For You, Tina Turner in the multiples and Jackie Wilson’s “Doggin Me Around.” There was Toussaint l’Ouverture’s biography, a picture of Langston Hughes, a drawing of Billie Holiday, a tennis ball that Althea Gibson had hit on, a copy of the Negro National Anthem, and a few clothes. She prayed her father wouldn’t notice, but she’d made off with one of Dizzy Gillespie’s mouthpieces, too. That was in case she needed to sell something to have some money. She’d heard that song bout “getting a job” ringing in her head: “And when I get the papers, I read em thru and thru, to find out if there is any work for me.”
Betsey was very organized bout the whole thing. She was going to go over to Mrs. Maureen’s where the ladies came to get their heads done. She would learn a decent trade, not have to be worried bout white folks cause there weren’t none around there, hear all bout the Shirelles and Dinah Washington, Mrs. Briscoe and Sister Auroralia who could see into the future for a price. This was gonna be Betsey Brown’s new life.
Betsey went out the back door, saw the half moon and smelled the damp night. She planned to go through the back yards of all the houses before Union Boulevard. Then she would take the bus round to Kingshighway, walk up it, and rest on Wabada Street. That would be half the journey to Mrs. Maureen’s. The moon was now skirted with thick clouds. Betsey started to hurry off, but realized she didn’t have to do anything unless she felt like it. Wouldn’t Mrs. Maureen be surprised to see her!
There was nothing like the smell of five or six newly pressed heads mingling with different types of greases and oils, long with the chicken brought in from next door or the ribs from cross the street. The jukebox justa goin cause women liked to be sung to while they were prettying themselves up. That’s how Mrs. Maureen put it. The curling irons would be clacking, bringing that last little old piece of hair up under the iron, so a row of curls enveloped the thinnest or broadest of faces. A row of curls a minute long or a row of curls flowing down your back. That’s how good Mrs. Maureen was at her trade. She took em with good hair, bleached or colored hair, hardly no hair to good-as-white-folks’ hair. Made no difference to her. If you paid your bill and walked out with a smile, Mrs. Maureen was satisfied.
Now “satisfaction” was something that Mrs. Maureen always discussed with Betsey. “Satisfaction” was the calling card of a good man, the Lord, and a night on the town. Yes sirree, to be “satisfied” was to know no wants or cravings and, hallelujah, never be in a envious state of mind. Be satisfied. Get what you want. Get somebody to get it for you, but have that sense in your soul, in your bones that “na’chel” knowledge of what is satisfaction. Mrs. Maureen told Betsey this cause so many of her clients, that’s the women whose heads she did, were not satisfied and so complained about every little doggone thing, got to looking old too soon and trying to pull hips too big for a growed elephant up the stairs to Maureen’s House of Beauty on Easton Boulevard. Yes, Mrs. Maureen would be clicking those curling irons or running that hot comb right next to your scalp talking bout the necessities of satisfaction in a woman’s life. Said she could see a unsatisfied woman with her head turned backwards and the lights out. There was a certain smell to a woman what knows satisfaction.
Mrs. Maureen knew more bout women and they needs than anyone sides Jesus, far as Betsey could tell. Why once when Betsey was under the dryer, which Mrs. Maureen liked her to be more often than not, Betsey heard the whole room of ladies laughing cause one Reverend’s wife had been calling on Jesus to “fix her.” Betsey heard Mrs. Maureen say she couldn’t have no heavenly mechanic working with her parts. Betsey wasn’t ’sposed to have heard that. But she already knew the song, “Fix Me, Jesus, Fix Me.” Vida sang it in the evenings sometimes or when she was crying bout Frank being gone. A mechanic could do “it” or Heavenly Son Jesus could do “it.” There was that “it” again. Some “it” a woman’s gotta have satisfied or be in trouble. Mrs. Maureen also believed wholeheartedly that unsatisfied women were mean and just a mess of trouble. That’s how come she told Betsey to find her a man what could satisfy her every need. Then Betsey said that only the Lord Almighty was able to do that. Mrs. Maureen just chuckled down in her full brown belly.
“The Lord done put a heap of glory in the bodies of many a young man, cause He just be overwhelmed with satisfying so many souls. The Lord needed some working man’s he’p sometime, that all.” And Betsey’s head was done.
Now these curls would have to stay in they tight little rows till one of Mrs. Maureen’s helpers gave you a comb-out, otherwise known as a style. But Mrs. Brown liked those curls to set right on her girls’ heads cause she didn’t trust Mrs. Maureen’s assistants not to send her children home looking too grown or colored.
Now, Mrs. Maureen had always been honest with Betsey and let her know from the start
that God had not given her the best head of hair in the world, but it was workable and had a chestnut sheen to it that made it stand out from everybody else’s. Yep, it wasn’t the thickest or longest head of hair, but good strong nappy hair. That it was. There was something to it that reminded Mrs. Maureen of the way hair grew on heads in Mississippi where her folks lived and that’s why Mrs. Maureen felt a special feeling for Betsey, being almost like home folks as she was. That’s why Betsey thought the most reasonable place to go when she ran away was to Mrs. Maureen’s, where she could learn more bout satisfaction and earn a decent day’s pay by sweeping all the cut hair up off the floor, fetching dinners and sodas for the ladies, bringing them Ebony, Sepia, or Jet, holding the mirrors so they could see how they hair was really set. Yes, Mrs. Maureen’s for some Snickers and a few Red Hots from behind the container of hairpins at the last booth where Mrs. Maureen always acted so surprised to have found them.
Betsey had taken so many out of the way turns she almost got lost. Plus she was a little sleepy and tired from carrying her bags. The moon was completely effaced by dark clouds on a dark night. Betsey headed straightaway for Mrs. Maureen’s, but fell asleep under someone’s porch.
When Betsey woke, she used dewy leaves to clean her face and pushed her hair around till it felt neat. She brushed off her skirt and was on her way.
It wasn’t like she was going to Paris or anything like Josephine Baker, but Betsey did have a feeling of adventure about her when she boarded the trolley with her small suitcase and her candies. It was nice to be on the trolley heading toward the colored section of town for a change. She wouldn’t be seeing no white folks today. That was one thing for sure. Just some police, maybe. That’s all. She wouldn’t be seeing too much of anybody, actually. Everybody was going in the other direction. Weren’t many jobs round Mrs. Maureen’s way and folks what had em lived there anyhow, so they didn’t have to take no trolley.
8
Not too much was happening round Mrs. Maureen’s at that early hour of the morning. Mr. Tavaneer was winding the gates up in fronta his liquor store. The grease wasn’t even hot yet in Mrs. Jackson’s “We Know You Like Jackson’s Chicken House.” Mrs. Maureen didn’t have her blinking lights on either. Mrs. Maureen’s blinking lights were a silhouette of a bouffant hairdo with the words “Maureen Can Do This For You” underneath in blue and red. The hairdo was purple and didn’t blink. Some of the lights were out, but everybody knew where Mrs. Maureen’s was. Betsey had to shout “Hello” to Mr. Tavaneer cause one time some robbers shot a pistol right upside his head for not moving fast enough. Mr. Tavaneer said he never had no intentions of moving, but no one knew the rest of the story cause the robbers hightailed it on away. Just Mr. Tavaneer couldn’t hear.
“Hello, Mr. Tavaneer!” Betsey walked closer to him. “Good Morning, Mr. Tavaneer!” Betsey was almost shouting by now. Mr. Tavaneer turned round gruffly. “Must you be blasting the daylights out of the ground, Betsey? It’s the other side I can’t hear out of, not this one. What you doing round here so early in the morning? Mrs. Maureen aint open to customers at this hour.”
“Oh, I’m not coming as a customer, Mr. Tavaneer. I’m looking for work.”
Betsey set her things down as Mr. Tavaneer opened the Spirit Shop.
“Aint your father still a doctor?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Don’t your mama work round to the hospital with them crazy folks?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Then why do you need work?”
“That’s how come I came to see Mrs. Maureen.”
“At this hour?” Mr. Tavaneer swept the debris from in front of his store and stepped back, surveying the neighborhood. The crap games would start soon. The laundrymats’d be open. The numbers man would be coming by a few times. The winos would find their way to his shop and the smell would lift him nigh unto heaven’s gate.
“Well, you keep a good ten feet from either side of my store, Betsey. That’s all I need is for the police to say I been catering to minors. Sides, I gotta mind to call your papa. I know he don’t think you out this way looking for no job. I just might do that. Silly gal. You’ll find out soon enough St. Louis is a dangerous place.”
Betsey wasn’t thrilled with Mr. Tavaneer’s words for the day, but she went on up the stairs to Mrs. Maureen’s anyway. At first there was no answer. Betsey rang the bell again and still nobody came.
“I told you it was a peculiar hour to come round Mrs. Maureen’s to ‘work.’ ” Mr. Tavaneer shouted from his bad side, thinking Betsey couldn’t hear him.
By the third ring, Betsey was beginning to feel a little scared. It was awfully quiet and dingy. There were ill-meaning folks cluttering up the street. Mrs. Maureen’s looked worn-out, or needing something like the Saturday customers to spruce it up. Finally Mrs. Maureen came down the many steps to the door. Her face wasn’t as pleasant as usual. That’s cause all the make-up from the night before hadn’t been properly oiled away yet. Then, too, Mrs. Maureen didn’t have on her beauty salon uniform. She had on a robe of some sort that twisted round her body like the ripples in some kinds of soda bottles, round and round, till they reached her bosom where they stopped all of a sudden and all this flesh hung out in two great mounds, dusted with little red feathers.
“Betsey Brown, is that you?” Mrs. Maureen managed to whisper through a wig that was sitting on her head the wrong way, or at least lopsided. “Well, Betsey, I aint open now. I mean, aint it a bit early to come callin?”
“Yes, Mrs. Maureen. I’m very sorry to disturb you, but I didn’t know where else to go. I ran away and you’re the only person I know who might help me.”
Mrs. Maureen put her hand on her hip to help herself stand up.
“You say you ran away. You ran away from where?”
“From home, Mrs. Maureen. I ran away from home. Nobody understands me there. They all want me to be somebody else. And I’m just Betsey Brown, Mrs. Maureen. You understand, don’t you?”
Mrs. Maureen’s eyes were finally beginning to come open. She coughed to wake up and shifted the tottering wig to the other side of her head.
“Un, hum. You say you ran away and came here.” It took a long time for Mrs. Maureen to grasp the reality of Betsey’s announcement. Now Mrs. Maureen had all kinds of girls coming in and out, but they weren’t thirteen, or plain old “Betsey Browns.” “Yes, you come on in heah while I think on this some. Run away, hum? And you ran away over heah?”
“Yes, M’am.”
Mrs. Maureen’s eyes kept opening and shutting as she led Betsey up the stairs to the beauty parlor, or what Betsey knew of the beauty parlor. Behind the French doors where Betsey assumed Mrs. Maureen lived, there was indeed a kitchen, but there were also some roomers or callers or men and women in the midst of all sorts of transactions. Betsey most forgot where she was and was fixing to run home till she remembered she was running away from home.
Mrs. Maureen shooed everyone out her way. Made herself a pot of coffee.
“You eat?”
“Yes, M’am.” Betsey was having second thoughts about coming to Mrs. Maureen’s. Seemed like there was more going on than usual. There were never any men at Mrs. Maureen’s, and the girls who helped out wore uniforms from the uniform store like Mrs. Maureen’s. It didn’t smell old and tired. Mrs. Maureen never looked so old, either.
Once she had her coffee and her body stopped this persistent heaving and swaying with every sigh, Mrs. Maureen took Betsey’s hands up in hers and said, “Chile, I know folks that love you can’t always see exactly what you mean, or feel exactly how you feel, but I can’t let you stay here in a place like this. Why I wouldn’t even let one of my own daughters stay here, Betsey.”
“But, Mrs. Maureen, you said I was almost like kinfolk. You said there was folks in Mississippi who looked like me. You said you’d love to have a child like me around to chat with and grow up.”
“Oh, Betsey, chile, I know your mama’s missing you.”
Mrs
. Maureen kept rubbing her hands together with Betsey’s, as if rubbing hands together would rub the knowledge of the world into Betsey’s head.
“But Mrs. Maureen, please, please don’t call Mama. She doesn’t even know I’m gone yet. They think I’m at school.”
“And that’s where you should be.”
“I’m tired of those white folks.”
“Who you think aint tired of white folks?”
Mrs. Maureen was beginning to get mad at Betsey now. Of all the very last nerve, to be running away from a family as nice as the Browns. Betsey needed a good talking to.
“Well, now that you’ve run off and all, what are you gointa do?” Mrs. Maureen shoved a plate of grits and eggs and sausage under Betsey’s chin, while she waited for a response.
“I was gonna help you out in the shop until I eloped.”
Mrs. Maureen liked to fell off her chair, which would have been quite something, seeing how Mrs. Maureen was quite something.
“Elope?”
“Yes, M’am.” Betsey’s eyes gleamed as she said the word and tasted the peppers in the sausage.
Mrs. Maureen, who knew she was getting on in years and had heard just about everything there was to hear and seen more than there was to see, let herself light up the kitchen with laughter. “Elope.” Mrs. Maureen jumped up like she was twirling crepe paper for a wedding screaming: “Elope,” and trailing it with, “Where you goin’? To Arkansas? Chirren can’t get married in Missouri and believe me, I know about the law. And that’s the law.”
When she’d tired herself out, Mrs. Maureen asked Betsey: “Isn’t elopin a bit ol’ fashioned? How old is this boy and does he know too, or is this thing just a secret tween me and you?”
Betsey didn’t see anything funny about her situation. She especially didn’t think her friend, Mrs. Maureen, should be laughing at her this way. Eugene Boyd was a fine boy and thirteen was just a little way from being full grown. But it was Mrs. Maureen’s or she didn’t know what, so Betsey kept her mouth shut.