“Daddy, what’s the matter with you. We up,” Betsey half-whispered, wiping sleep from her eyes. Charlie’d started to put the trash out. How in the hell did he know what was on Uncle Greer’s mind? Margot and Sharon were trying to do each other’s hair. Allard was in the garage lighting matches. One apiece for the KKK. “That’s a way,” he’d say. “Burn em away, God, burn em away.” Vida smelled the fires and gave Allard a running chance to miss that switch she’d pulled to snap some sense into his brain, but Greer was just a drumming and a dancing in the kitchen like nobody had to go to work or to school.
“All right, Uncle Greer, let’s start the morning quiz. I got a bus to catch.”
“Yeah, Daddy, we got to go all over to the white folks’ part of town and that aint no little bit of way, either.” The children chimed in one upon the next.
“There’s no quiz this morning,” Greer said matter-of-factly and stopped drumming. “Actually this is more important than a morning quiz. The time has come for us to do something about our second-class citizenship, and this separate but equal travesty we call our lives. This Saturday we are all going to demonstrate at that racist paragon of southern gentility, the Chase Hotel.”
Jane couldn’t believe her ears. After everything they’d been through with Betsey, last night, how could he imagine that her children were going to confront wild dogs, hoses, redneck cops, and foolish peckerwoods throwing bottles, eggs, tomatoes, whatever their trashy little hands could find, on her children? Not in this lifetime.
“Greer Brown, you can take your black ass down to the Chase and let them rough you up, but not one of my children is stepping out this door!”
“They’re going. It’s their struggle.”
“You going to risk my children’s lives to pee after some po white trash, or rich white trash for that matter. You are a fool, if you think I’m goin to let you get away with that! You are out of your mind! If you think Brown vs. Ferguson was something, you wait till you hear the doings of Jane Brown vs. Dr. Greer Brown. I mean it! Not one of my children is going to any demonstration. You want a wife and family or you want the colored to drink water all round town, anywhere they want to drink water? You get one or the other, Greer Brown: me and my children or you and the race. It’s as simple as that.”
“Usedta be a body could find a Negro boarding house, Greer, where the colored could be themselves and not worry bout trash and they doings and carrying on,” Vida interceded as gently as possible before she went outside to her dahlias.
“That’s not enough. Either we’re citizens or we might as well be slaves.”
At this point Jane made a motion with her arm for the children to get on to their buses, to get out of her sight before all hell broke loose.
“Greer, I always knew there was a fool somewhere deep down inside of you, but I never in my life imagined that you thought you could use my children to fight a colored folks’ battle that colored men haven’t won yet! You are either crazy or beside yourself with fever.”
“Jane, this is a matter of integrity.”
“Integrity, my ass! It’s a matter of my babies’ lives!”
“That’s why we’re going. For their very lives.”
“You can take your foolish behind anywhere you goddam well please, but not my babies.”
“Who am I, Jane?”
“What are you talking about who are you? You’re my husband.”
“What does that mean, Jane?”
“Right this minute I can’t tell you what the hell it means!”
“It means the children are going to participate in the struggle of their people, your people too, by the way. And they’re going to do it cause I said so. I’m the man in this house.”
“You definitely are a jackass. I can’t say what kind of man you are, but if you’re going to play God with my children that I labored with, that I birthed, you best recall how to do all of it, cause I’m leaving your black behind right here, with the race, the children, the bills, the dishes, the fights, the homework, the tears, and everything those children are every day, while you so high and mighty at the Negro hospital. Why don’t you go over there and demonstrate? Say don’t let the Negro people live, let em die till we can get em in the white folks’ hospital. Let em die of thirst till they can drink white folks’ water. Let em die. Greer, how can you risk our babies?”
“I thought you’d know the answer to that. ‘And a little child shall lead them.’ ”
Jane sat at the kitchen table stiff, though her cheeks were quivering. Greer had always had it in him to be that kind of man, but she never thought she would see the day when he went back on their marriage vows, “to love and honor.” She didn’t believe this was happening to her.
“Greer, are you telling me that no matter what I say or do, you are taking my children to God only knows what on Saturday afternoon for the sake of the colored who don’t even know where the Chase Hotel is? You’re going to let my babies face battalions of police and crowds of crackers? Greer, they’re children.”
Greer poured Jane a cup of coffee just how she liked it: cream first, coffee, two sugars.
“We’re going. We’re all the ammunition we’ve got.”
“I’ll leave you, Greer. My babies aren’t cannon fodder. I may be your wife, but I don’t have to watch you feed my babies to crackers on a silver platter. ‘Here, come and get em, they’re not even full grown.’ ”
“We’re going. Jane, why don’t you come with us?”
“Cause my life is worth more to me than peeing after white folks!”
“I love you. I’m doing this for you. I’m doing what a man’s supposed to do for his wife and children, Jane. Can’t you see that?”
“I see my babies aren’t safe. I see you ruining a marriage that’s already been through hell and survived. I see you throwing away all we worked for. Greer, anything but my babies! I’ll go, but please don’t take the children. Please, Greer?”
Jane tried to rise from her seat, but her knees were weak. Greer caught her in his arms. “I love you. This is your home. I’m your husband. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“No, Greer. I can’t be here with you to see my children mangled. I don’t know right now if I can be with you at all. Mama will stay here while I, uh, go do something somewhere.”
Greer tried to hold her close to him but she pulled away.
“I know you’re my husband and I can’t do anything about that right now, but I won’t share this savagery with you. I . . . I will let you know, if I’m coming back. Just tell the children Mommy went away for a while. That’s all you’re to say.”
Jane inched slowly out of Greer’s arms and went to pack some things. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t know if she was doing the right thing. She knew she couldn’t watch what might happen to her children. The race needed something, but not with her babies. Greer was right about integrity, but not with the babies. She was stonelike and rigid, laying the photos of each one of them on her nightclothes in the suitcase. She felt ashamed, but she had to go.
Greer felt the front door slam all the way in the kitchen. He sat down praying she’d understand and come back. He needed her, more than ever. He was taking his babies to a battle he wasn’t sure he’d win. He was leading his children of his own free will to face what grown Negroes had already died for. He’d die for Jane, for any of them, but she didn’t understand that yet. Greer prayed his kind of prayer for the spirits of the Lord, somebody to bring his wife back. She was such a good woman. Just the woman he’d needed all his life. She didn’t know where she was going, but he didn’t know how to go on without her.
Oh, he took the children to the demonstration all right. But nobody was hurt. The police didn’t even knock any heads. Greer had no way to tell Jane all the children were safe. He didn’t know where she was. He didn’t know if she was coming back, but he’d done what he had to. A man had to stand for something.
Betsey was doing Margot’s hair who was doing Sha
ron’s hair who was tying Allard’s shoelaces.
“Listen y’all,” she said, “Mama went away for a while and that’s all he said.”
Betsey tried her best to reassure the children that Jane was coming home, but she didn’t know any more than her father had told her. “She gone away for a while.”
“Well, where’s Mommy?” Allard whined continually.
“We could help Grandma and cook and tidy,” Sharon added. “Least till Mama gets back.”
“Aunt Jane always kept cookies in the pantry. Uncle Greer doesn’t know how to run a house,” Charlie grumbled.
“I wisht she was home,” Sharon cried over Allard’s shoes.
“I want Mommy,” Allard screamed.
“Hush up, you hear! You gonna make Grandma get agitation of the heart. We’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
Greer didn’t wake them with the conga drum anymore. He didn’t even give morning quizzes. He just patted the children’s hair into little humps that looked like dunce’s caps, gave them too much money for lunch, and went off to the hospital. He tried watching sports with them, boxing, baseball, but there was someone missing.
“When is Mama coming back?” Allard pouted.
Vida did the best she could, but she missed her daughter, and keeping up with all these children was really more than she could handle. It was hard for her to sleep at night, listening to all the children praying for their mommy.
“Grandma, I want my mommy, I want my mommy.” Then Vida would carry little Allard to sleep with her.
11
Betsey prayed more than anyone knew for her mama to come back to her. But when Carrie came she figured everything would be all right.
Now Carrie was a big woman, bigger than anyone on Vida’s side of the family or Greer’s. Even Aunt Marie, who talked in tongues and ran a farm all by herself, couldn’t have been as big as Carrie. And Carrie straightened her hair so funny. It made her look even bigger. Cause she didn’t curl it, she just ran a hot comb through it, so it pointed out in all directions like a white man’s crew cut. And she had pierced ears like Aunt Mamie’s, who was ninety. The ears like to touch her shoulders, they were so long and narrow. But more than all of that, Carrie wore two housedresses at the same time, one on top of the other. One up till lunch then the other till she went up to her rooms on the top floor, where the white folks who lived there before left all this junk, scrapbooks and crinolines and things.
Carrie tied her dresses with a rope, a real thick rope. Not like one for hanging clothes, but more like one for making a swing on a tree. She always wore it, even when she changed housedresses. And Carrie wouldn’t use any of the bathrooms, even though there ought to have been enough for her, cause there was one on each floor. But Carrie said she liked to use the latrine in the cellar cause that’s what her mama had in Arkansas. And that’s where she went, where she could think about her mama. Which is what every child in that house was doing, thinking bout their mama, when was she coming back, if she was.
Then, Carrie would say, “This here is just a lil bit of independence time. Yo’ mama’s coming back for sure. Who could leave a passel of younguns like y’all. Not a soul, ’lieve me, not a livin soul. Allard, put them matches down.”
Vida was very quiet, tending her dahlias: each petal was her Jane. Who could tell what could happen with a ruffian like this mindin the chirren. Her beautiful dahlias.
What bothered Vida was that Carrie was never in a particular hurry to do anythin. Not that the laundry wasn’t air-fresh clean, and the chandeliers were sparkling, as was the silver. It wasn’t that the children didn’t get their meals. Vida just couldn’t figure out when Carrie did it. Was something natural to it and Carrie wasn’t working at all. Plus, Carrie kept visitors, or rather a visitor, Mr. Jeff, who was planting more geraniums than the Browns’ backyard had ever known.
Everybody knew about Carrie and Mr. Jeff. That was called a “scandal” according to Margot. It was funny to Allard cause Mr. Jeff was so handsome and Carrie was peculiar to his mind. Allard always teased, “Mr. Jeff’s come a courtin.” Carrie’d shake her finger at him and say, “Hush yo’ mouth. Mr. Jeff and I are jus’ pals. Aint that right Mr. Jeff? We ju’ close friends,” squeezing his hand.
Mr. Jeff was the perfect gardener and the spiffiest dressing one you could lay your eyes on. The children didn’t understand what a polished-up fellow like Mr. Jeff would want with Carrie, that heavy-set sprawl of a woman, with her hair sticking every which way, when the MacKenzies had that cute little Puerto Rican, Maria, tending children, and the Jacobs a nubile Mississippian watchin after the infant twins. But Mr. Jeff proceeded.
“I’m a gardener and my partners are the ladies with the chirren. I sho’ do like to grow things: episia cleopatra, lilacs, cactus, and geraniums of course.” With an orange carnation in hand, he sidled up to Carrie asking if she liked tiger lilies, too.
Carrie looked all about herself to see where she was gonna put these flowers on her. While she patted herself, trying to find the right location, Mr. Jeff took her by the hand to the granite bench near the fish pond, lifted the flowers from Carrie’s hand, tossin one flower to the fishes and the other tween her bosoms like a fragrant kiss.
“I sho’ do like to grow things, Miss Carrie. Are you free on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday, even Sunday, M’am? I know I takin some liberties, but there’s just something about you that entices me.”
Carrie leaned way back to scrutinize this scalawag comea-courtin in broad daylight with the children all about.
“Grandma, Grandma was sick in bed
Called the doctor and the doctor said
Grandma, Grandma you aint sick
All you need is a lickin stick.”
Sharon and Margot chanted behind the bushes. Charlie and Eugene dunked baskets, impressing each other, letting Allard dribble the ball, while Betsey read Countee Cullen poems she’d dug out of her mother’s things. Betsey was reading Countee Cullen along with Eugene’s arms: sinews. Something about sinews that made poetry more rousing than she remembered.
Then, there was Mr. Jeff, lifting a silver decanter of blackberry brandy in fronta Carrie’s nose and toward her lips. After much southern twisting of the shoulder and coy, Carrie sipped a swig or two. It was good Vida was in the front. She never even thought a man would look at Carrie, and that had soothed her soul. What man would want a woman like that hooligan from the swamps or the hills or wherever she came from? It was good Vida couldn’t see Betsey gettin a kiss for every long shot Eugene successfully made. And Carrie gettin a snuggle for every promised Thursday and Friday or any ol day just come on round, the chirren just bout take care of theyselves.
Sharon and Margot leapt into double-dutch with the MacKenzie girls: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 91 speed em up, gotcha mama, but when Mr. Jeff took a holdt to Carrie’s thigh, almost all the children burst into a chorus, “Jeff’s come a courtin, Jeff’s come a courtin.” All this is cept Eugene and Betsey, who were busy kissin behind the garage. Eugene was looking for some of the same things Mr. Jeff was looking for, but Betsey didn’t know and Carrie wouldn’t have it.
“Jeff’s come a courtin, Jeff’s come a courtin.”
Mr. Jeff looked at Carrie as if to say, I thought you could handle these younguns, but maybe not.
“Scat now, chirren. Do like I say, I gotta mess of porkchops with rice and gravy just longing to go to waste, if I don’t get my way. Scat now. For your own sake, you bettah do what I say.”
The girls disappeared to some far reaches of the yard to eat honeysuckles. Eugene and Betsey liketa set Allard himself on fire when he found them squinched up behind the garage back wall. Of course, he lit a match to say, “I’ma tell! I’ma tell! Betsey’s not a good girl and she’s goin to Hell.”
“Allard, you get outta here! You hear me! I’ll slap you good, if you tell on me,” Betsey screamed. Eugene’s tongue caught Betsey by surprise, but what a kiss. Her eyes clouded over. The smoke she felt must be Eugene’s kissing, bu
t it was Allard killing off Nazi warplanes with a pile of newspapers. Eugene ran for the hose.
Betsey took the time to straighten herself up. But she didn’t want to, not really. There were two kinds of flames. Both of them dangerous, if they got out of control. Eugene lifted Allard by the seat of his pants and swatted him a good one.
“I’ma tell. I’ma tell y’all was kissing. I’ma tell Daddy, and Grandma and Mommy too.”
“Whatchu gonna tell an to who? I swear for Jesus I smell smoke round heah.” Carrie huffed behind Allard’s left shoulder.
There was smoke everywhere. Eugene and Betsey scrambled by, but Carrie caught Betsey by the arm.
“You stay right heah with me, gal. You and me gotta lotta talkin to do. And you, Boyd boy, you get on too. All I’ve gotta do is have a fine afternoon with Mr. Jeff and y’all gonna act the fool.”
Betsey could smell the blackberry rum on Carrie’s breath and noticed she’d changed her morning dress to the evening dress, still with the rope, mind now, yet much more elaborate. Mr. Jeff was waving a kiss down the driveway and Carrie moved her flowers to her hair and behind her ears.
“What do you think Dr. Brown’s going to do with me, if he finds the garage burnt up, or Betsey in some rarefied trouble? Y’all aint got no home trainin, no sense of style. There’s ways to do things and ways you caint. Y’all simply sufferin from malnutrition of manners. All hugged up on a garage door, in your school clothes at that! Didn’t have time to put your poem book down, so busy with that Boyd boy’s eyes. Allard, I told you WW II was over, but WW III gonna start tween you and me, if I so much as hear you gotta flame near you or anybody else. Yo’ behind’s gonna be on fire. You can believe that.
“Now everybody go on and pretty up for dinner. Dr. Brown likes you lookin’ neat and clean when he comes through the door. He’s been feeling mighty low since, well you know, since your mama’s been gone. So don’t nobody be putting on no show of niggerness. And Betsey, don’t you be doin’ every little thing that Eugene tells ya. You and me gotta heap of talkin to do, a heap of talkin, I’d say. Sharon and Margot, take them nasty plants out yo’ mouth. Come, get ready for dinner. Y’all just suffer so from malnutrition of your manners, and comin from a good family, too. If I’m holding company, don’t y’all come mess with me. There’s many a fool who got on my wrong side and never got up to get on the right side.”