I just stared at her.
“That’s right. Old Beelzebub himself. That’s how the devil works. He ain’t no fool with a red suit and a tail. No, he works on your mind. When you let your mind dwell on trouble, you can’t be doing what you needs to be doing. Then he wins, you see? He can’t win unless you let him because he ain’t got no power on his own.”
“So, basically, what you’re saying is that worrying about Daddy and Aunt Carol or Grandma Sophie diverts my attention from other things, better things?”
“That’s it! That’s my girl!”
“Yeah, but Livvie, I don’t think I’m ever gonna forget what I saw.”
“I know that, chile, but listen up, every time that picture comes back in your head, ask the Lawd to help it go away. He will.”
“Livvie?”
“Mm-hm?”
“Your grandfather was a slave?”
“Yes, chile, he was. They carried him off from Africa when he was a young man and he nearly died on the way ’eah. The old people didn’t like to talk about slavery. It was a terrible time.”
“It must’ve been horrible.”
“It ain’t over, Susan. We still got our troubles, but I just keep to myself and don’t get all messed up with all this fool talk about integration and such. I don’t want to eat at the lunch counter in Woolworth’s over to the city. I’d rather eat in my own house!”
“Well, I ain’t got the money to eat there. It’s probably greasy anyway.”
“Yes, but you could eat there. I can’t. You could use the bathroom there. I can’t. It ain’t ever gone change and iffin it does, gone be a miracle for sure. Wait till all these old buckra narrow minds die and find heaven full of colored folks! Won’t that be the day!”
“I don’t know, Livvie, I’m not gonna even be fourteen until next month. I don’t know about all this stuff.”
I was embarrassed. I knew what she said was right but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Suddenly I was very glad that Daddy had built the new bathroom. If Livvie had ever been told to use the outhouse, she would have quit on the spot.
Maggie says that when colored people die and go to heaven, their skin turns white. I used to believe that when I was little, but now I knew that it was another dumb lie made up by white people.
For a long time I had always thought plantation life must’ve been full of music. Long days and hard work, and somehow in my mind, all of it was set to music. Slaves singing, ladies dancing, beautiful carriages and horses bringing people to parties at night with lanterns all over the yard—that sort of thing. How stupid and naive could I have been? Their music was born of pain, pain caused by people of my race.
“Well, I’m gonna go help Maggie put the porch back together, okay?”
“Susan, come back ’eah, chile.”
I turned to face her.
“Listen to Livvie, I tell you what’s on my mind, not to make you feel bad. I want you to think. Gawd got His special purpose for you, just like He does for every one of us. He done give you a very good mind. The world you have when you grow up is gonna be the one you make. You use your mind and make it better.”
“I will, Livvie, I promise.”
BY SUNDAY MORNING it seemed that the entire Island knew that my momma had twins. Every hour somebody came over with a gift for my new sisters. Most people brought two pairs of booties—in fact, we had fifteen sets of two already—and every last one of them wanted to know what the twins’ names were. They didn’t have names yet. But, in the tradition of the family reputation of lying through our teeth, Timmy and I decided to quit explaining.
“I’ll get it,” I screamed when I heard the knock.
It was Mrs. Wilson, the red-headed schoolteacher from Sullivan’s Island Elementary School. She was divorced but since talking to her was only a venial sin, I launched right in.
“Hi!” I said.
“Oh! Susan, I’m so glad I caught y’all at home! I thought you might be at church.”
“No, ma’am. We went to Mass at eight o’clock this morning. Timmy and Henry had to serve on the altar, so we all just got up and went.”
“Well, that’s nice, dear. Listen, this is for your new sisters.”
“Thank you. Booties?”
“Yes, I made them myself! How’s your momma?”
Make that sixteen pairs of two and still counting. The day was young.
“Good. Coming home Tuesday. We’re going to see her in a few minutes.”
“Well, please send her my best. Did she name the girls?”
“Yes, ma’am. Posie Sue and Rosie Sue. Momma likes flowers, you know, and she named them Sue in my honor. Isn’t that nice?”
Her face went blank. “Well, I always say people should name their babies whatever they want,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am, I think so too.”
By the time we left for Charleston, my sisters had some of the craziest names you can imagine. Itchy and Scratchy, Timmy told Mrs. Fisher, because Daddy said the twins were all bumpy and rashy. Sneezy and Wheezy, I told Mrs. Mosner, because their noses were runny, but don’t worry, it’s not on the birth certificate, I told her. Daphne and Delilah, Tara and Scarlet, and Lucy and Ethel were some of our favorites. We were laughing so much in the car Daddy started screaming at us.
“Shut the hell up! I’m trying to drive!”
Silence prevailed and we spent the rest of the ride looking at the damage from the storm. Trees were still down everywhere; the roads were covered in a wash of sand. The water was still high on the causeway. It was incredible how much damage could happen in just a few hours. Unfortunately Mount Pleasant had electricity again, which meant school would be open Monday.
When we reached the parking lot at the hospital, Daddy gave us a talk on our manners. We gave our word not to behave like a bunch of banshees. I had avoided talking to him and was wondering how I could avoid it for the rest of my life.
We took the elevator up to the maternity ward and waited outside Momma’s room until Daddy said we could go in.
“Momma?” I said. “Hey! You alright?”
“I’m tired but I’m fine! Come give your momma a kiss,” she said, “and meet your new sisters.”
We bombarded her with homemade cards and signs, crawling over her to see the twins. They were in the bed with her and when I saw them I started crying. So did Maggie. They were so beautiful. Momma was so moved that she started to cry. Then Daddy grabbed the Kleenex box and started passing them out. That made us laugh. He pretended to cry, making fun of us, but he was so loud he scared the babies and they really started crying. The more they screamed the redder they got. Maggie picked up the blond and I picked up the brunette. I couldn’t believe they calmed down.
“You girls are going to have to help me when I come home, you know,” Momma said.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Momma. I love babies,” I said, thinking of my plan.
“They look like Susan and me,” Maggie said.
“Yeah, that one doesn’t have any eyebrows,” Henry said.
“She’ll get them later, bird brain,” Maggie said.
“Boy, she’s got some grip!” Timmy said. The baby I held had her tiny hand wrapped around his finger. “Gonna be a wrestler!”
“I hope not!” Momma said.
“All right, you kids go wait in the waiting area and I’ll be along soon,” Daddy said. He was so pleasant it made me forgive him for the moment, making me hope things would be better. We lined up like good little soldiers, kissed Momma on the cheek and the twins on their heads and filed out. There was something magical about the moment. Maybe the twins would bring us good luck. Maybe Daddy would go back to loving Momma. Momma looked pretty good, I thought, considering what she’d been through. Remembering the babies’ names, I giggled to myself.
THE GREAT JOY of my sisters’ birth and the plans to tell it all over school were dwarfed by the terrible news of the following Monday morning. When my brothers and I arrived at school we were told
by our teachers to go directly to chapel for a special Mass. We were told that somebody had bombed a church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four little girls. Many others were seriously hurt. It was a Negro church. We were absolutely stunned. The nuns were crying and there was a mood of despair that crept through the pews like poison gas, rising up from a dark place. The hideous news changed us forever.
Until then, I had no clue whatsoever that the Civil Rights movement was so dangerous. It had always just seemed so far away, like Vietnam. And I couldn’t imagine who would kill children because they were colored. If grown-ups wanted to fight each other, they would, but what kind of a person bombed a church? And how deep must be the hatred that drove the person to commit such an unforgivable crime? Who would kill people while they prayed? I had a hard time trying to concentrate in my classes. I kept seeing the grief-stricken faces from the newspaper that someone was passing around. Visions of children lying in coffins tormented me all day. For some inexplicable reason, I didn’t want to face Livvie when I got home. I knew she would be angry.
She was grieving as though those children had been her own. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, humming a church song. I found her ironing when I came in the back door with Timmy and Henry after school.
The boys each grabbed a cookie from the plate on the table she had set out for us and ran upstairs.
“Chocolate chip! Thanks, Livvie!” Timmy said.
“My favorite!” Henry squealed.
I put my books on the table and reached for a glass to pour some milk for myself.
“Want some milk?” I said.
“No, chile, I don’t want nothing today. No, nothing today.” She looked long at me and went back to her ironing, humming a little, but her eyes were incredibly sad.
“We had a special Mass in school for those girls in Alabama,” I said quietly.
“It just don’t make no sense,” she said. “People killing like this. Bombing the Lawd’s house. Lucifer got to be stopped! Somebody got to stop him.”
“You’re right,” I said. “What can we do?”
“Beg Gawd to help,” she said. “Gone take the mighty power of all His angels to stop this kind of thing. I’m fearing it’s gone come this way. Hatred is a terrible thing. Like cancer. Eats you up.”
“You’re right,” I repeated, at a loss for words for once in my stupid life.
“My cousin Harriet come to my house this morning with the paper. When I see them faces of them mommas and daddies crying for they children, make me cry. That’s all.”
“Me too.”
She looked at me and realized my eyes were red too, but she was suspicious of my honesty. Couldn’t she see that I was frightened by what had happened in Alabama? It meant the trouble could come here and children here might get blown up too.
“This ’eah is trouble for my people, not yours, Susan. We gone fight the fight, because every back is fitted to the burden,” she said, slamming the iron on the board for emphasis. “We done carry burden since we come to this country in chains. Ain’t much different now.”
The last thing I’d let her do was shut me out.
“You’re wrong about that, Livvie. I mean, I don’t usually disagree with grown-ups and I never thought I’d disagree with you, and I’m sorry to say so, but you’re wrong.”
“Oh, yeah? Let me ’eah this now. Now they burning babies!”
“I know that, but I didn’t do it! Listen, God made all of us, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“And the only difference between you and me is our skin color, right?”
“Yeah, I reckon so.”
“And kids are kids, right?”
“They sure enough are.” She was patiently watching me bumble my way through this and giving me all the rope I needed to hang myself.
“Well, if a colored man blew up a white church and killed some white kids, that wouldn’t mean all colored people are bad, would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t.”
“It would mean that there was one crazy sumbitch out there, or maybe a bunch of them, but not every colored person was crazy, right?”
“You may be right, but please don’t say that curse word. Ain’t fitting.”
“Okay, so this means that there are a bunch or maybe even a lot of bad guys in Alabama who don’t want integration, but not everybody feels like that.”
“I already told you. I don’t care about integration. I just want peace, that’s all. Just want to live my life in peace and serve the Lawd.”
“Me too. But, Livvie, a lot of people do care about integration. I mean, Sister Amelia, my teacher, said plenty today that made a lot of sense to me. I think that colored kids should have the same opportunity that white kids do. Then it would be more fair. I mean, if they have the same schoolbooks and the same chances at the same tests, then colored kids can grow up and do more. I’m not talking about you and me, here—after all, you sent all your kids to college, right?”
“Yes, I certainly did. And it wasn’t easy. I cleaned toilets to buy textbooks. Think about that.”
“Right, I’m sure you’re right. But I’m talking about kids that probably aren’t even born yet. And kids from families who don’t value education.”
“Even iffin they gone let all the colored children in Charleston in the white schools tomorrow, it ain’t gone bring them four little girls back to life, Susan. Four little girls died yesterday because white people will always hate black people,” she said. “That’s just how it is. They want to hold us down.”
“It’s true, those little girls are gone. There will always be rednecks and bad guys. Can’t change that either. But we can change education, Livvie; it’s a step. Equal education could be a big step.”
“Maybe, but it ain’t the answer,” she said, and pointed to her chest. “The answer got to come from ’eah. In the heart.”
I took a big gulp of my milk and nodded at her. She was right about the solution coming from the heart. I knew that you could pass all the laws you wanted to but if somebody didn’t want to obey them, they wouldn’t. She got up from her ironing board to hang the shirt she had been pressing. “Momma’s coming home tomorrow,” I said.
This made her smile again. We really didn’t want to argue with each other. “I know. Spent all morning getting they room fix up. Can’t wait to hold them babies! When I told Harriet I had two new grand babies, she got so jealous I thought she’d pop! Oh, Lawd! You should’ve seen her face! Yes, ma’am, thought she would pop.”
We began to talk about the twins and how I would help her with them and then, our discussion about integration finished for the moment, I left her and went out for a bike ride with Timmy and Henry.
The water had receded somewhat from our yard and the Island was beginning to dry up from Hurricane Denise. We rode our bikes all over Sullivan’s Island looking at the damage. Seemed like every house had something happen to it, especially those on the oceanfront. We had merely lost shingles and screens and had some fallen branches plus a lot of beach sand in our yard. The old Island Gamble had another notch on her belt.
We came home late in the afternoon to do homework and have supper. I could smell the okra soup and the sweet corn-bread as I climbed the back steps. Livvie was putting her coat on to catch the five o’clock bus. “See y’all on the morning train!” she said. She was leaving early and coming in early tomorrow. She smiled sadly at me and patted my arm before she went out the back door. Things had changed a little. A tiny line of color had been drawn. It broke my heart.
Ten
Write Away
1999
A week had passed since Hurricane Maybelline had ripped through the Southeast. Damage was in the millions of dollars and everywhere you went you heard stories, stories and more stories. I ventured out to buy paint for the guest room. I knew it was all covered by my insurance policy, but I thought I’d get estimates, do the work myself and save the money for something else. Everybody does this, don’t they
?
I joined the throngs of ersatz interior and exterior decorators on line at the Home Depot. Customers staggered under their armloads of screening, two-by-fours, boxes of shingles and cans of house paint. I stood on the shortest checkout line—twenty people—and while I waited, the comedy hour was free.
“Found a dog in my yard! Tag was from Pawley’s Island! Dog was fine. Can you believe it?”
“Came home from my mother-in-law’s house and my curtains were sucked right through the windows! Not a rip in them! Have you ever?”
“Got drunk, went to bed like usual with my old lady, everything was fine. Never heard a thing all night! Got up and half my roof was gone!”
I had been dealing all week with claims adjusters, tree surgeons, carpenters, window guys, the carpet store. Roger hadn’t called. Big shock. But he’d probably turn up at some point. And Mr. Tom hadn’t called once. So much for his passionate concern. But embittered I’m not. Dumb dates and failed marriages make you either a boozehound or a philosopher. I was not even particularly surprised that Tom hadn’t called. Leaving someone is a process, not just an impulsive decision. It takes a long time to let go. In some peculiar way, I was relieved that I hadn’t heard from him. When I finally got home, I called Maggie.
“Hey! You want to go grab some lunch with me? I’m dying for fried shrimp, haven’t had ’em in months. I’m in the mood to eat neurotically.”
“Why not? Sounds good as long as you don’t look at my fingernails. Cleaning up after that hussy Maybelline wrecked my manicure.”
“Now there’s a tragic story if I ever heard one. I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes. Wanna go to the Yellow Dog on the Isle of Palms?”
“I’ll be ready.”
As my car swung around East Bay Street to take the bridge east of the Cooper, I found my heartbeat slowing down. I was on my way to the beach—the cure-all for whatever ails me. I mean, I was feeling philosophical because it was Saturday. Up until now, I’d been cussing like a sailor every time I passed the silent phone. And I’d been giving myself lectures ninety ways to hell and back for sleeping with Tom.