A Piece of Mine (5 page)

“Well, if you don’t know, don’t cry.”

She say, “Just something I feel, but I don’t know how to splain it.” She had a nice soft voice. I hated to see her cry.

I say, “Cause of hugging that bill collector?”

She say, softly, “yea” and give one of them deep sighs like old Mz Wright do when somebody break in her house when she gone to church and take her only money.

I say, “Well, why do you do it then? Let him take that ole radio!” (I loved that radio too; it was all I had to talk to sometime.)

She say, “Cause I don’t think mama like me to do it either, so I must hafta … if we both don’t like it and still she tell me to.”

I don’t say no more … just think … sit and think. I am a good thinker. Then pretty soon mama bring us something, a piece of candy or half a orange or something and Zalina smile and forget.

At least I think she forgot.

Then, I remember so clear, one night, daddy came home and came in our room. I thought it was by mistake then, but now I know it wasn’t, and he tried to get in bed with Zalina but she fought him. We was older then, bout 16 or 15 or something. I kept grabbing daddy telling him that was Zalina not mama! Then, I thought he might be playing so I jumped on his back and was gonna play too, but mama came in in the dark, didn’t put no light on just stood there and he got up and left. Zalina just lay there crying softly into that pillow again. (That pillow sure could tell some stories if it could talk!) I remember wondering why a person so pretty and had everything, looks and all could always be crying? I kinda knew, but didn’t know exactly what I was knowing. Anyway, next day when Zalina try to talk to mama, mama say, “Don’t tell me … 
NOTHING!”

Zalina cry, “Why mama? He hurt me!”

Mama say, “Cause he all I got! Ain’t got no more! Can’t get no more! Got no money but his and (pointing at me) I got that chile there to take care of … the rest of her crippled life! That’s why!”

Zalina start crying, “Why don’t you love me, too? Don’t I need somebody to love me too?” Mama slapped her even as she said, “I love you! But I got to keep a
HOME!
You hear me? A home! A home!”

Zalina say, “We can take care of ourselves! Keep our own home!” She mad too!

Mama say, like she had a 500 pound sack of rocks on her back, “Chile, you be gone from here in six months, a year, next month even, when the right man cross your path and you want to follow! Me and your crippled sister gonna have to stay here … and live!” (I’m getting tired of that “crippled” word. I seem to grow a foot smaller every time she point at me. The house seemed so black and scary inside even tho it was early morning and the sun was out!)

Zalina went and threw herself on the bed in our room and cried in that pillow again. I always follow her and say something. I said, “Don’t cry Zalina, he didn’t mean to hurt you!” She looked at me a long time, not mean, kinda with love in her eyes, soft-like.

“Yes, he did.”

I say, “Well, don’t cry, he won’t do it again! I’ll kill him!” Lord, I was talking bout my own daddy, but I was talkin to my own sister!

She say, “I know it!”

I say, “How you know it?” (relieved).

She say, “Cause I’m leavin here!” And when she was through restin, she just walked out that house and didn’t come back for a long, long time. So … Mama was right … I guess.

Then, I went to getting and keeping a heavy something in my chest thinking bout what my mama said when she pointed to me. I was the one making both of them miserable! Taking things and doing things they didn’t want to. So I went (took me all day, I have to go slow you know) and looked up a job keeping babies. They had to be little new babies, cause I can’t keep up with big bad ones. I found a job
and after a few years of keeping babies day and night, I found a little house on a little clearing I could buy with my little savings. I wasn’t scared way out there like mama said I should be, cause nobody hadn’t never wanted me before, no way. The ladies still brought their children for me to keep by day and sometimes night, so I made a little money every week and kept taking care of myself. Then, didn’t nobody really have to take nothing on account of me, no more!

But you know what? Mama still didn’t leave daddy and you sure couldn’t say things was any better with them!

Mr. Notebook, you remember when Zalina come back cause I wrote in on your pages. I was so happy to see my sister! I ran to her! She came in a big shiny car with a big shiny man. Lord! They all three was beautiful! Dressed to the “T”! She still had that sunshine smile and used it all the time, especially when she looked at that man! Him too! He smiled all the time and laughed a deep good strong laugh. He was always crushing her to him, too. Like they say in the books, “He crushed her to his heart.” I told you she looked like a fresh plump fruit! Like if you squeeze it all the juice come splirting up! Nobody ever crushed me cept once a girl I had to fight til Zalina run out the school and showed that girl how not to bother me no more! First night she spent with me, she made her husband sleep on a cot in the kitchen and she slept with me and we talked and laughed nearly all night and I wondered why I had ever wished she would die.

Anyway, she brought us all, me and mama, some pretty things from the city and one of em was a pair of high heel shoes for me! I say, “Girl, what am I going to do with these?… I can’t wear these things!”

She say, “You a woman ain’t you?”

I say, “But I’m a cripple!” (that word again).

She say, “A crooked spine don’t make a cripple. A crooked mind do! You wear them shoes even if you only wear them at home by yourself! Love yourself! Enjoy yourself! No matter if no one else ever do!” I just stared at her and loved her.

Pretty soon, too soon, they was leaving. Mama wanted to go with her, but Zalina say “You got to stay here and take care of your home, mama. I got to go and take care of mine!” So mama stayed home. We all three be taking care of each of ourselves. Zalina gave me her address case I ever need anything, then they were gone.

Wasn’t long after that when daddy died from drinking so much, the doctor say. I got a ride to town and sent Zalina a telegram saying “Daddy is dead.” She sent one back say “O.K.” and that was all.

The next time Zalina came home, she brought a baby girl with her named Glory. She still looked good but something was missing beside her husband. Some of her smile. I soon found out (you know, I ask questions), her husband was killed because he was protecting his wife and his manhood when his white boss tried to rape Zalina. She said later on she pleaded with the white man and even let him do it to her so she could save her husband. But the white boss did it to her and still had her husband killed. Oh Lord, why she have to be so pretty that white man had to want her? Wasn’t the wife he had enough?

She had a smaller car and all, but she still had pretty clothes, only this time she was drinking kinda heavy. She stayed with me mostly, but mama some, and mama kept the baby. Mama sure did love that baby and daddy was gone so she gave her whole self to that baby, little Glory.

Zalina found some friends in town so they could bring her some liquor. That was O.K., but I was disgusted when she took up with Murky Mac! An old dusty nothing man who didn’t work but always laid around street corners and all. They would go into the bedroom and when they come out, he would always leave her two or three bottles of liquor. I ask her why she go on with Murky Mac like that? That even me, a virgin who really want to see what loving is all about and didn’t never have no dream I ever would, would not let him come near me and put nothing of his in me!

She say “I don’t like Murky Mac! He is a dirty old man! But he got the money to bring me what I want! And, I don’t let him put nothing in me either! He just like to lick it and since he know how to lick it and I need something done to it, I let him!”

Well now!! Licking it! Don’t that beat all?! Anyway, she finally got tired of us and left going back to the city. Said she would write me, and she did, when she got an address.

After she was gone, Murky Mac came out to my house and leaned on the doorjamb looking at me. I happen to be putting on my high heel shoes, for myself, you see, because I am a woman! I stared right back at him and pretty soon we talked. It was burning hot outside and I knew he didn’t want to get right back outside in that heat, so I said “Might as well sit down and have one of your drinks!”

He said, “Might as well,” and did.

Then he say, “You might as well have one too!”

I said, “Yea, might as well,” and I did!

We had some more after that and Murky Mac said, “You might as well do it all!”

I say, “All what?”

He say, “Don’t bullshit me!”

I say, “O.K., I won’t bullshit you!” and I didn’t.

He say, “Come on then.”

He took me into my own bedroom and lay me down and … I did. It was alright too. My first time at anything, but nothing but that licking cause I still had pride about myself! And he was Murky Mac! When he left, he said “I’ll be back!”

Well, I got a ride into town soon as I could and bought some little bottles of perfume cause I didn’t see how he could stand it! Next time he came by, I put that perfume everywhere on me I thought I needed it! It musta worked pretty good too, cause he kept coming back after that, even bringing me presents, pretty little things … for women … for a lady … for me. I started thinking of something new to
do. Tied ribbons on the hair, braided it sometimes, put jam on it, homemade. He liked lemon pie so I put some of that on it one time and when he left he took the pie off with him too. Well, I was having quite a time then. You know it, Mr. Notebook, cause I sure told it to you!!

Now about that time, a year or two later, Zalina came home again. This time, she came on the bus and brought another baby. It was another beautiful girl child, another beginning for me from Zalina.

Well, Murky Mac came out with the liquor for her, but only went into the bedroom with me!
ME!
Over Zalina! Some of her teeth were brown and her hair was just pulled back with a rubber band. Her clothes weren’t too good this time … maybe that’s why … But I don’t like to think so! I like to think it was cause he loved me … or somethin.

She was drinking twice as much and looking twice as bad. Zalina left town again, but it didn’t really matter because soon Murky Mac was dead and with him my sex love life was dead. Just dead. But I had a baby—Zalina’s baby—and my life really began again. The baby, Mae B., was sickly a little bit, but I nursed her right on up and today she is a beautiful child, my child, our child, mine and Zalina’s. I don’t give a damn who the daddy is! And Mama don’t care who the daddy of Glory is! That child has given her new life now she has the money from the state and her jobs to take care of a child right! They’re both beautiful wholesome girls!

Oh, my sister, my Zalina, how I hurt for you.

A few years later, Zalina came back. She was sick. I could see it right off! She said the doctor had told her if she drank one more glass of liquor it could kill her! She said she hadn’t had a drink in a whole week and she wanted to rest. How she would lay and stare at her children! Have you ever seen love in somebody’s eyes? I mean just pouring out so you can
SEE
it?! Well, I have … out of Zalina’s.

Time passes and Zalina got better and got to looking really good! Lots of people have moved to this town and
Zalina met up with a nice man who came to take her out. He even stop seeing his regular girl. Zalina really liked him and wasn’t too long before they were talking bout getting married. Everybody always loved Zalina. But you know how people can be jealous and ugly and don’t like you cause of their small hurts and minds and memories? Somebody told him about all kinds of things, true and untrue I guess, even about Murky Mac and maybe some things I didn’t even know yet or either, and they made that man change. Zalina waited outside his job and his house so she could sit down with him and straighten things out, but she shouldn’t have done that cause then I could see he really loved himself! She didn’t suit him no more and he wouldn’t tell her why, just married up with his first girl. Zalina went off and got three bottles of liquor and sat down and started drinking, talking bout being “tired.” She would drink and sleep and wake up drinking again. That last bottle sent her to the hospital and that’s where she died three days ago … and today, they buried all that sunshine six feet under the ground … and it hurts me. I hurt all over … inside and outside. AHHH-hhhhhh-ohhhhhhhhh!

Lord, Mr. Notebook … I don’t know. I guess this may be my last time writing in you now that Zalina is gone. She put all the life in me, she put all the life in you. I ain’t got no life of my own worth talking about. Just ain’t got no life of my own.

I think about changing this name Zalina gave our baby from Mae B. to Zalina Two. No … no. I’m gonna leave her name to Mae B. Maybe some day … Mae B. just may be somebody on this earth and not just on your pages, Mr. Notebook. Cause, you know what, I’m going to teach her about how people can want you … can love you to death! Just use you up!

But right now … I’m going outside and run with Mae B. and think of Zalina while this earth that holds her spins round under my feet.

I
‘M
telling you, say what you willomay, these mornings, early like this, is just too beautiful! People think that here in the country there ain’t nothing but boredom, day after day. But they wrong! These is big days following great big days! Lookit them trees down that road and that big fat cow over there! And that sun coming up! Now, ain’t that pretty?!

And I’ll tell you something else! See that speck way down the road there? That’s Laylonny. Coming to wait for the bus to get to work, just like us. You new here so you don’t know her yet, but I remembers when she was born. Was a song out then bout Hawaii; Sweet Leilani! And Laylonny’s mama loved that song so she named her baby “Laylonny.” She couldn’t spell it the way they did so she spelled it “
L—A—Y—L—O—N—N—Y
.” Now Leilani may mean “Heavenly Flowers,” but Laylonny must mean earthly flower! See what I mean?