A Piece of Mine (2 page)

Now, she asked Charles to take Maybelline back to the city to get the rest of Maybelline’s things to move down there and Charles didn’t mind at all cause I had seen him looking that Maybelline upways, downways, and both sideways and I
could tell he liked what he saw and so could Maybelline cause she was always posing or prancing. Anyway, they went for a day, one night and back the next day. Before they went, I saw Charles sit on the side of Mary’s bed and, first time I ever saw him do it, take her hand and hold it, then bend down and kiss her on the forehead. Musta been thinking bout what he was going to do to Maybelline while they was gone, but anyway, I’m glad he did do it. It brought tears to Mary’s eyes. Then, they were gone and before they got back, Mary was gone.

I have to stop a minute cause everytime I think of that sweet woman.…

She had told me what to do, the funeral and all, so I had taken care of some of those things and Mary was already gone to the funeral home and the funeral was the next day.

When they come home or back, whatever!, all they had to do was get ready to go to the parlor. I don’t know when or nothing like that, but when Charles went to the closet to get something to wear, the closet was bare, except for a note: “Dear Charles,” it say, “They gone to the Salvation Army just like you always say you want. Yours truly, Mary.”

Now that man run all over trying to find some way to get them back but they was nice things and somebody had done bought them or either kept them, you know what I mean? Then, he rush over to the bank to get some money and found out his name wasn’t on the account no more! The manager gave him a letter say: “Dear Charles, You told me so many times you don’t need me or nothing that is mine. Not going to force you to do nothing you don’t want to do! Always, Mary.”

His named was replaced with Maybelline’s so naturally he went to see her at the store. She say sure, and give him $50 and he say, “Come go with me and help me pick it out,” and she say she ain’t got time. So he told her take time. She say, “I got to take care this business and close the store for the funeral.” He say, “I’ll close the store, this ain’t your business
to worry about.” She say, “This my store.” He say, “Are you crazy?” She say, “I ain’t crazy. I’m the boss!” He say, “I’m Mary’s husband, what’s hers is mine!” She say, “That’s true, but this store ain’t hers, it’s mine! I bought it from her!” He say, “With what? You can’t afford to buy no store as nice as this!” She say, “Mary lent me the money; it’s all legal; lawyer and everything!” He say, “How you gon’ pay her back? You got to pay me, bitch!” She say, “No … no … when Mary died, all debt clear.” He say, “I’ll see about that!” She say, “Here, here the lawyer’s name and number.” He snatched it and left. He musta found out she was right and it was legal cause I never heard no more about it.

Now everybody bringing food and all, the house was full, but I was among the last to go and when Charles got ready to go to bed he say he wasn’t going to sleep in the room Mary died in and he went into the third bedroom. I heard him holler and went in there and the covers was pulled back and the bed was full of rocks … and a note say: “Dear Charles, Tried to get what you wanted, couldn’t carry no boulder, honest. Yours, Mary.” Me, I just left.

Next morning he opens the food cupboard and it was almost empty, but for a note and note say: “Dear Charles, here is 30 days supply of food. Waste that too. Yours, Mary.” I’m telling you, his life was going upside down. He and Maybelline stayed in that house alone together and that old Charles musta had something going on that was alright cause pretty soon they were married. I knew he thought he was marrying that store again, but let me tell you, Maybelline was pretty and fleshy but she couldn’t count and didn’t like to pay bills or the workers on that little piece of land of Mary’s and pretty soon she was broke and the store was closed cause nothing wasn’t in there but some old brown dead lettuce and turned up carrots and empty soda bottles and tired squashy tomatoes didn’t nobody want. Charles didn’t have nothing but an almost empty house. They cussed and fought and she finally left saying she wasn’t really
his wife cause she didn’t have no divorce from her last husbands! So there!

Now, that ought to be all but let me finish telling you this cause I got to go now and see bout my own life.

Exactly a year passed from the day Mary had passed and a white lady and a black lady came to Mary’s house with some papers and I heard a lot of hollering and shouting after a bit and Charles was putting them out. They waved those papers and said they would be back … and they did, a week later, with the Sheriff. Seems like Mary had give Charles one year to live there in the house and then it was to go, all legally, to be a orphan home for black children.

Welllll, when everything was over, I saw him sitting outside in his car, kinda raggedy now, just sitting there looking at the house. I took a deep breath and went to my dresser and got out the envelope Mary had give me to give him one year from her death, at this time. I looked at it awhile thinking bout all that had happened and feeling kind of sorry for Charles till I remembered we hoe our own rows and what we plants there, we picks. So I went on out and handed him the envelope through the car window. He rolled me red eyes and a dirty look and opened the envelope and saw a one hundred dollar bill and … a note. He read it with a sad, sad look on his face. “Dear Charles, here is $100. Take all the nothing you want and in a year you’ll have everything. Yours truly, your dead wife, Mary.” Well, he just sat there a minute, staring at the money and the note, then started his car up and slowly drove away without so much as “good-by.” Going somewhere to spend that money I guess, or just stop and stare off into space … Whatever!

W
HEN
Lida Mae was born the ninth of nine children, she had a 90% possibility to do and be anything she would choose. She had a good brain and disposition, good health and body, excellent looks and big legs to come in the future! She was going to be neat, petite and all reet! As they say!

During the first 12 years as she was realizing her world of food, animals, insects, trees and flowers, school and other people, people, mostly men, were realizing her. Even brothers and uncles liked to put their hands and anything else they could where they shouldn’t have been. She always had some change to spend and she was generous and kind to everyone and shared always. She liked to laugh. I mean, what did she know to cry about? So she was fun to be with.

Her mother, Sissy, was tired and worn out early from having fun because it seemed every time she had some fun, she had another baby! They were beautiful children though and each one a memory of some good time! The first one was her husband’s and maybe one or two of the others. She didn’t know and it didn’t matter no-way! She had some money from the state and her own little odd jobs (not too
many tho, she had been tired a long time now) so that in case, as usual, her husband didn’t bring nothing home, she could feed them and him, too. Sissy was like that, treated everybody alike.

So Lida Mae hurried to school and to play, even to household chores with a smile on her pretty face. She lived by rote that way til she was 14 years old and was coming home from school and got a ride from one of her mother’s friends, Smokey, who had a run-down raggedy car but acted like it was a new Oldsmobile or something. During the ride he drove real slow, the long way, cause he couldn’t get enough of feasting his eyes on Lida Mae and all her innocent peachy splendor. She shone like a brilliant star in that dirty beat-up old pile of junk. She had accepted the ride cheerfully enough so he asked her to accept $1.00 first then changed it to $2.00 to let him touch her in her very own private spot. She seemed disappointed for a moment, but Lida Mae kept looking at the $2.00 on the seat til she said “I ain’t gonna pull my panties down!” He said he could manage that and she opened her young legs and he managed it as she picked up her $2.00 and rolled it deep into her fist. She got out at home, at last, and he whispered “Don’t tell your mama!” She answered “Are you a fool? I ain’t gonna give her my $2.00!” and slammed the door and bounced on in her house!

Now, people don’t have to be there to “know,” you know? Somehow some people just looked at Lida Mae and knew something from their own experiences. Lida Mae had a few boyfriends her own age she laughed and talked and kissed with and sometimes at a show or playing hide and seek, they did just that: played hide and seek. She was not really a loose young girl or a prudish one, just caught up in the middle of life and didn’t know a damn thing about it so she just “felt” her way through. Then, when she was 15 years old she was still a virgin because she also liked her school work, books and the teachers. She knew all about love leading to marriage and all that but she wanted something out of life
because her teachers told her there was something to get out of life. She wasn’t always thinking about boys.

But the unexpected is so unexpected it’s expected! One day going home from school (she was really a doll at 15 going on 16) the man who owned the filling-station called to her and said “Hey, little bit! come over here and have a Coke with me! It’s on the house!” Lida Mae, because of her fight for survival at the dinner table at home, seldom refused something to eat or drink for free. She smiled as she turned her feet toward the station, “O.K. Mr. Hammon!” He grinned down at her. “Let’s sit inside, it’s too hot out here!” “O.K.” she smiled as she followed him. He opened the Cokes asking her if she wanted some whiskey in it and when she said “No thank you” gave her plain Coke. He sat down in the only chair pulling her by her dresstail down on his lap, “Sit down here girl, ain’t got no other chair for you to sit on.” Now, Lida had known him all her life it seemed so she wasn’t nervous, she sat! He rubbed her leg through her dress while he talked to her, “Who your boyfriend girl?” he grinned. (He wasn’t a bad looking man.)

“I don’t know,” she said smiling.

“You don’t know who you love?” He looked shocked.

“I don’t love none of em, I just like em!” She took a drink.

“I know they like you.” He lowered his voice.

“How come?” She grinned.

“Girl, you know you pretty, pretty as a picture!” He rubbed her leg. “Even I could like you!” He was serious now.

“Oh, Mr. Hammon, you wouldn’t! I’m too young for you and Mrs. Hammon wouldn’t like that!” She took another drink.

“Mrs. Hammon don’t know everything!” He smiled then noticed she was almost through with the Coke. “Wanna nother Coke?”

“No, I got to go now! I’ll take one with me if you want to!” She set the empty bottle down and prepared to get off his lap.

Mr. Hammon moved his knees and Lida Mae almost fell backwards and Mr. Hammon grabbed her around the waist and under her dress as she struggled to get up. He said, “Oh! Oh! Lookit here what I got my hand on! I didn’t mean to do it, but I couldn’t let you fall!” He grinned.

“Well help me up!” She cried.

“I can’t!” He grinned. “I can’t move my hand!” But he was moving his hand and when he let Lida Mae up, she was mad! She left there with six Cokes tho and her virginity intact.

Lida Mae didn’t play so hard with the boys for the next week or so. Something told her it wasn’t so innocent and she felt a little grown up in a way they weren’t.

Somehow on the next hot day after school when Lida Mae had no money, her long braids freely flying behind her, she turned into Mr. Hammon’s filling-station. He was just a man after all and she felt grown so she went and got her own Coke and sat down in the chair herself! Mr. Hammon watched awhile as he worked on his customer, one of the few in this little small town, then she was leaving with six more Cokes, waving good-by. In a few days she stopped again and reached for a Coke but the Coke freezer was locked. Mr. Hammon walked over to her smiling as he unlocked it and held it open for her and told her to take two out. This day when she sat on his lap, she opened her legs and he smiled with the devil looking out of his eyes and she looked at him with eyes wide open to receive the devil.

It wasn’t long before Lida Mae was not a virgin anymore and really liked Mr. Hammon. She had all the Coke she wanted to drink and kept a nice little piece of change in her pockets. She had new sweaters, blouses, skirts and shoes to wear. Things she had never had too much of except at Christmas, maybe. She didn’t play with the boys her age anymore cause “she had a
MAN,”
a grown man with money! She felt above her friends, girls and boys, until sometimes she forgot and played as hard as they did at games the way a young girl her age should have!

Mr. Hammon didn’t care nothing bout no school; sometimes he told his wife he was going fishing instead of working and closed the garage and Lida Mae skipped school. He and Lida Mae stayed in back of the garage on the little cot Mr. Hammon had kept for such purposes for the last 20 years anyway. They drank Coke, only now they had whiskey in it and Lida Mae would get home drunk but nobody paid it no mind, there was so much else to pay attention to in a house full of nine grown and half grown kids: some of the older ones coming in drunk too. There were still some there that were 25 years-old or bout! Just lazy, do-nothings most of them. Some bringing a wife or husband home or go live off with one and be back and forth so you sometimes didn’t know who was living at home and who was not! Sissy didn’t get drunk so much anymore after the doctor warned her. Just laid around and never smiled, eating and sleeping and getting fat, but when she did get drunk they gave her plenty space cause she would tell them to get their grown asses out of her house! Then, she would grab her coat and stagger out the door to they didn’t know where and they didn’t care where! Just don’t mess with their lives! I’m sure the devil used to look in on the situation and be amused!

Lida Mae liked herself because she had more sense than to settle for boys who could only make babies. Mr. Hammon wouldn’t do that to her! He gave her money too! Now, how you like that!? She smiled to herself.
SHE
had a future! She was gonna stop cutting school too! The teachers had spoken to her and she was getting ready to graduate, but she had missed a few tests and things that she had to make up! So! This was the last day she was going to let him talk her into cutting class in the afternoon, she thought to herself as she turned into the filling-station.