Coming of Age in Mississippi (21 page)

“What I asked you, Essie, is if you wanted to go to school with Wayne,” Mrs. Burke said stiffly. “I am not interested in what Judy’s friends did to you. So you are telling me you want to go to school with Wayne!” She stormed out of the dining room, her face burning with anger.

After she left I stood at the ironing board waiting—waiting for her to return with my money and tell me she didn’t need me anymore. But she didn’t. She didn’t confront me at all before I left that evening. And I went home shaking with fear.

The next evening when I came to work I found a note from Mrs. Burke stating she was at a guild meeting and telling me what to do. That made things even worse. As I read the note my hand shook. My eyes lingered on “the Guild.” Then when Wayne and his friends didn’t show up for their little session with me, I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what to do. I waited for an hour for Wayne and Judy them to come. When they didn’t, I went to Mrs. Crosby’s room and knocked.

When Mrs. Crosby didn’t answer my heart stopped completely. I knew she was in there. She had been very ill and hadn’t been out in a month. In fact, I hadn’t even seen her because Mrs. Burke had asked me not to go to her room. At last I put my hand on the knob of her door and slowly turned it. “She can’t be dead, she can’t be dead,” I thought. I opened the door slowly.

“Mrs. Crosby,” I called. She was sitting up in bed as white as a ghost. I saw that she must have been sleeping. Her long, long hair was not braided as usual. It was all over the pillow everywhere.

“How do you feel, Mrs. Crosby?” I asked, standing at the foot of her bed. She beckoned for me to come closer. Then she motioned for me to sit on the side of her bed. As I sat on the bed, she took my hands and held them affectionately.

“How do you feel?” I repeated.

“Weak but better,” she said in a very faint voice.

“I was suppose to help Wayne them with their algebra this evening, but they didn’t come,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “I heard Wayne and his mother fighting last night. Wayne is a nice boy, Essie. He and his friends like you very much. However, his mother is a very impatient woman. You study hard in school, Essie. When you finish I am going to help you to go to college. You will be a great math teacher one day. Now you go on home. Wayne and his friends aren’t coming tonight.” She squeezed my hands.

The way she talked scared me stiff. When it was time to go home and I walked out on the porch, it was dark. I stood there afraid to move. “I can’t go through the project now,” I thought. “Mrs. Burke them might have someone out there to kill me or beat me up like they beat up Jerry. Why did I have to talk to Mrs. Burke like that yesterday?” I took the long way home that went along the lighted streets. But I trembled with fear every time a car drove past. I just knew that out of any car five or six men could jump and grab me.

The following day, I didn’t go to work. I didn’t even go to
school. I told Mama I had a terrible headache and I stayed in bed all day.

“Essie Mae, it’s four o’clock. You better git up from there and go to work,” Mama called.

“My head’s still hurting. I ain’t going to work with my head hurting this bad,” I whined.

“Why is you havin’ so many headaches? You been lazin’ in bed all day. Miss Burke gonna fire you. Junior, go up there and tell Miss Burke Essie Mae is sick.”

I lay in bed thinking I had to find some other ache because Mama was getting wise to my headaches. If I could only tell her about Mrs. Burke, I wouldn’t have to lie to her all the time. I really missed Mrs. Rice. Mrs. Rice would have told me what to do. I couldn’t talk to any of the other teachers. “What can I do?” I thought. “I can’t just quit, because she’ll fix it so I can’t get another job.”

When Junior came back, I called him into my room.

“What did Mrs. Burke say?” I asked him.

“She ain’t said nothing but for you to come to work tomorrow, ’cause the house need a good cleanin’. She want me to come with you to mow the yard.”

I felt a little better after Junior told me that. But I couldn’t understand Mrs. Burke’s actions. It worried me that she was still going to keep me on. What if she was doing that just to try and frame me with something? “I’ll see how she acts tomorrow,” I finally decided.

At seven o’clock on Saturday morning Junior and I headed through the project for Mrs. Burke’s house. Usually I took advantage of my walk through the project to think about things and compose myself before I got to work, but today I didn’t have a single thought in my head. I guess I had thought too much the day before. When I walked up on her porch and saw her standing in the hall smiling it didn’t even register. I
was just there. I realized at that point I was plain tired of Mrs. Burke.

I went about the housecleaning like a robot until I got to the dining room. Then I started thinking. I stood there for some time thinking about Mrs. Burke, Wayne, and his friends. It was there I realized that when I thought of Wayne my thoughts were colored by emotions. I liked him more than a friend. I stood softly looking down at the table and the chair where Wayne sat when I helped him with his lessons.

When I looked up Mrs. Burke was standing in the doorway staring at me. I saw the hatred in her eyes.

“Essie,” she said, “did you see my change purse when you cleaned my room?”

“No,” I answered, “I didn’t see it.”

“Maybe I dropped it outside in the yard when I was showing Junior what to do,” she said.

“So, that’s how she’s trying to hurt me,” I thought, following her to the back door. “She better not dare.” I stood in the back door and watched her walk across the big backyard toward Junior. First she stood talking to him for a minute, then they walked over to a corner of the yard and poked around in the grass as though she was looking for her purse. After they had finished doing that, she was still talking to Junior and he stood there trembling with fear, a horrified look on his face. She shook him down and turned his pockets inside out. I opened the door and ran down the steps. I didn’t realize what I was about to do until I was only a few paces away from them.

“Did you find it out here, Mrs. Burke?” I asked her very coldly, indicating that I had seen her shake Junior down.

“No, I haven’t found it,” she answered. She looked at Junior as if she still believed he had it.

“Did you see Mrs. Burke’s purse, Junior?” I asked him.

“No, I ain’t saw it.” He shook his head and never took his eyes off Mrs. Burke.

“Junior hasn’t seen it, Mrs. Burke. Maybe we overlooked it in the house.”

“You cleaned my bedroom, Essie, and you said you didn’t see it,” Mrs. Burke said, but she started back to the house, and I followed her.

When we got inside, she went in the bedroom to look for her purse and I went back to housecleaning. About thirty minutes later she interrupted me again.

“I found it, Essie,” she said, showing me the change purse in her hand.

“Where was it?” I asked.

“I had forgotten. Wayne and I watched TV in his room last night.” She gave me a guilty smile.

“I am glad you found it.” I picked up the broom and continued sweeping.

“I’ll just find me another job,” I thought to myself. “This is my last day working for this bitch. School will be out soon and I’ll go back to Baton Rouge and get a job. Ain’t no sense in me staying on here. Sooner or later something might really happen. Then I’ll wish I had quit.”

“Essie, I don’t have enough money to pay you today,” Mrs. Burke said, sitting at the big desk in the hallway. She was looking through her wallet. “I’ll pay you on Monday. I’ll cash a check then.”

“You can give me a check, now, Mrs. Burke. I won’t be back on Monday.”

“Do you go to piano lessons on Monday now?” she asked.

“I am not coming back, Mrs. Burke,” I said it slowly and deliberately, so she didn’t misunderstand this time.

She looked at me for a while, and then said “Why?”

“I saw what you did to Junior. Junior don’t steal. And I have worked for white people since I was nine. I have worked for you almost two years, and I have never stole anything from you or anybody else. We work, Mrs. Burke, so we won’t have to steal.”

“O.K., Essie, I’ll give you a check,” Mrs. Burke said angrily. She hurriedly wrote one out and gave it to me.

“Is Junior still here?” I asked.

“No. I paid him and he’s gone already. Why?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I just slowly walked to the front door. When I got there, I turned around and looked down the long hallway for the last time. Mrs. Burke stood at the desk staring at me curiously as I came back toward her again.

“Did you forget something?” she asked as I passed her.

“I forgot to tell Mrs. Crosby I am leaving,” I said, still walking.

“Mama doesn’t pay you. I do! I do!” she called to me, as I knocked gently and opened Mrs. Crosby’s door.

Mrs. Crosby was propped up on pillows in bed as usual. But she looked much better than she had the last time I was in her room.

“How are you feeling, Mrs. Crosby?” I asked, standing by the side of her bed.

“Much better, Essie,” she answered. She motioned for me to sit down.

“I just came to tell you this is my last day working for Mrs. Burke, Mrs. Crosby.”

“What happened? Did she fire you, Essie?” she asked.

“She didn’t fire me. I just decided to leave.”

“I understand, Essie,” she said. “And you take care of yourself. And remember when you are ready for college let me know, and I’ll help you.” She squeezed my hand.

“I gotta go, Mrs. Crosby,” I said. “I hope you’ll be up soon.”

“Thanks, Essie, and please take care of yourself,” she said.

“I will, Mrs. Crosby. ’Bye.”

“ ’Bye, Essie,” she said. She squeezed my hand again and then I left her room.

When I walked out of Mrs. Crosby’s room, Mrs. Burke was still standing in the hallway by the desk.

“Maybe you would like to come back tonight and say goodbye to Wayne, too,” she said sarcastically.

I didn’t say anything to her. I walked past her and out of that house for good. And I hoped that as time passed I could put not only Mrs. Burke but all her kind out of my life for good.

I was in town about three days later when my next job found me. I had just mailed a couple of letters and was going through the post office doors as Mrs. Marcia Hunt, one of the owners of Hunt and Taylor Ladies Shop, was entering.

“Excuse me, ain’t you Essie, the girl who worked for Mrs. Burke?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered, wondering what she wanted. She was a friend of Mrs. Burke’s and lived across the street from her and no doubt was a member of the Guild.

For a moment she seemed baffled because I had answered her so bluntly. “I need a girl to help me in the store a couple of days a week,” she said. “I can pay you two dollars a day if you will help.”

I thought for a minute. The four dollars a week would keep me going until school was out.

“What evenings would you like for me to work?” I asked her.

“Tuesday and Thursday, if you can fit it in,” she said.

“You want me to start next Tuesday?” I asked.

“Yes, that will be fine. I’ll see you then,” she said.

I thought I might really enjoy the new job. I liked the idea of working in a store again. But when I got there after school on Tuesday and discovered I was to be the janitress, I was disheartened. The first thing Mrs. Hunt asked me to do was clean the display windows.

As I walked out of the store hugging a stepladder under one arm and hauling a pail of water with the other, I stepped right into a group of my classmates. I was so embarrassed, I felt like running and hiding somewhere. But I didn’t. I walked outside, placed the pail on the pavement, and opened up the stepladder. The Negro students who came through town were
still passing by as I climbed up. I expected them to shout insults at me or something, but they didn’t. Some called out, “Hey, Moody,” as they passed and some simply passed without saying anything. Those who called out or spoke to me didn’t sound as if they were poking fun at me. Once I dropped the sponge and one of the boys picked it up. “Hold it. I’ll get it,” he said.

Just as he handed it to me, I saw Wayne turning the corner with some of his friends. I lost my balance and almost fell flat on my back. “Essie, watch it or you’ll hurt yourself,” Wayne cried, running to me and grabbing hold of the ladder. He stopped it from rocking and said, “Mama told me you were working for Mrs. Hunt. But I thought you were working at her house. You shouldn’t be doing this. What happened to the man Mrs. Hunt had helping her?” His friends looked on curiously as he talked to me.

“I don’t know. How’s the algebra coming along?” I asked. I climbed down to the first step of the ladder.

“O.K., but we miss you. We all go over to Judy’s on Thursday night now. Maybe you can come over and help us before the finals,” he said.

Just then I saw Mrs. Hunt standing inside the door, observing Wayne and me closely. I was sure Mrs. Burke had told her about me. I got the feeling she had hired me more out of curiosity than out of need. Following the direction of my eyes, Wayne noticed Mrs. Hunt for the first time. “Well, we gotta be going, Essie. I’ll come by and see you before the finals and see if you can help us out, O.K.?”

“All right,” I answered, and he and his friends left.

I climbed back up the ladder and started on the window again. Then the expression on Wayne’s face when he saw Mrs. Hunt registered on my mind. He had looked scared—not for himself but for me. And now I got scared too. “I won’t be here too long,” I thought. “School will soon be out and I’ll go back to Baton Rouge for the summer.”

Within a few weeks Mrs. Hunt had formed her own
opinions about me. At first she acted as though she thought I was some kind of smarty who needed to be taught a lesson. She was always telling me what to do—making sure I did it just the way she wanted it done. Then gradually she let me do things my own way. When I told her I was saving money for college, she began to show a lot of respect for me, and said she would pay me five dollars if I would clean her house each Saturday. She also arranged for me to baby-sit for her daughter on Sunday nights for another five dollars. In addition, her sister, Mrs. Taylor, paid me three dollars to clean her house on Fridays. I was soon making fifteen to twenty dollars a week all told and my savings were growing nicely.