Coming of Age in Mississippi (8 page)

For a long time I stood there looking at her. I didn’t want to wake her up. I wanted to enjoy and preserve that calm, peaceful look on her face, I wanted to think she would always be that happy, so I would never be unhappy again either. Adline and Junior were too young to feel the things I felt and know the things I knew about Mama. They couldn’t remember when she and Daddy separated. They had never heard her cry at night as I had or worked and helped as I had done when we were starving. No they didn’t know the misery Mama suffered. Not even Raymond knew. Mama loved him too much to fight with him or have him see her cry.

But even while I was standing there with all those dreams about the eternal happiness I wanted for Mama, I knew deep down in my heart that it wouldn’t last. Deep down, I knew that she wasn’t really happy now and that she hadn’t been since we’d moved. I had seen her sit on the porch too many times and look over at Miss Pearl’s with hate in her eyes. I also knew that Raymond’s people hadn’t really accepted Adline, Junior, and me either, even though we went to their
houses often and played with their children. But the biggest worry I had was the fact that Raymond still hadn’t married Mama. Now she would have two babies for him and three for my daddy and still no husband. Mama didn’t think I knew this but I did. I knew that even though she was living in the same house with Raymond and even though he supported us, she still wasn’t safe without being married to him.

Some Sundays, Raymond would go over to Miss Pearl’s and spend the afternoon. Mama would be so uneasy every minute he was over there. And if Raymond came home in a bad mood, I would hear Mama mumble to herself, “I know they don’t do nothing but sit over there and talk about me.” I was always afraid that any day Raymond could be taken away from Mama. I didn’t think she could take it if that happened. She had waited for him so long.

I got myself all flustered standing there thinking about Mama and all we had been through. Now I didn’t even feel like seeing the baby or talking with Mama. We were out of school for the Christmas holidays and I was helping Mrs. Claiborne do her Christmas cleaning, so I just left Mama sleeping and went to work.

That evening as I was coming home a little early from Mrs. Claiborne’s, I saw Raymond and Miss Pearl walking down the road toward our house. “She can’t be coming to see us,” I thought. “After all she doesn’t even speak to Mama.” But she certainly looked as if she was coming. When I reached our front walk, I hurried inside. Mama was sitting up in bed when I walked in.

“Raymond and Miss Pearl is coming down the road,” I said. “She look like she is coming here.”

“What?” Mama asked me as if she didn’t believe me. She got all nervous. Her face went through a million different changes as she started patting her hair, straightening the covers on the bed, and looking at the baby to see if she was wet.

In what seemed like seconds Raymond and his mother were walking through the door. I just stood at the foot of Mama’s bed, waiting to see what was going to happen.

“Come on in,” I heard Raymond say to Miss Pearl.

“Where is my little girl?” Miss Pearl cooed as she entered Mama’s room.

Mama looked at me and then pulled the covers off the baby.

Miss Pearl didn’t come all the way into Mama’s room. She stood in the doorway and didn’t move one step from there. She acted as if Mama wasn’t even in the house. Raymond walked over to the bed and picked up the baby and carried it to her.

“She does look like her grandmother,” Miss Pearl said, shaking the baby and carrying on over her.

“I told you she looked just like you,” said Raymond. Then he pulled in a chair from the living room for her to sit on.

All this time Mama looked like she was so anxious for Miss Pearl to just speak to her. The least Miss Pearl could have done was ask Mama how she felt even if she didn’t mean it. But Miss Pearl wasn’t even about to do that.

“I ain’t got time to sit down, Ray. I gotta go cook dinner,” she said quickly, and gave Raymond back the baby. He took the baby over to the bed and handed it to Mama. Then he and Miss Pearl left the house.

As soon as they walked out, Mama starting fussing. “She got some nerve coming in my house and not even speaking to me. How dare Ray bring her in here and run over me.” I looked at Mama and now tears were running down her face. I didn’t say a word to her, I just turned and walked out of the room onto the front porch. Miss Pearl and Raymond were standing in the road talking. I sat down on the front steps and stared at them.

I thought of the calm, peaceful face Mama had had that morning before I went to work. After seeing her tears again so soon I knew that, as long as Raymond’s people could make
her cry, they would. “Raymond is just a fool,” I thought. “He is not a man at all. He could easily put a stop to this. No, he’s too scared of hurting their feelings.” I sat there on the steps wishing that Mama had never moved in with him. Looking at him now, I could see he would never break with his family for Mama and they would never accept her, no matter how hard she tried to make them like her.

A few days later Aunt Caroline came by to check on Mama, and see if she was ready to name the baby. She brought some papers for Mama to fill out and send off to get the baby’s birth certificate. I had heard Raymond and Mama talk of naming the baby after Miss Pearl. But I knew Mama wouldn’t do that now. Mama named the baby Virginia after Mrs. Johnson and called her Jennie Ann, same as Mrs. Johnson is called.

After Aunt Caroline left, Mama told me that she had also delivered Adline and Junior, and all my grandmother’s children. She and Aunt Mary Green, who had delivered me and James, had been midwives for every Negro baby between Woodville and Centreville for the past forty years. Aunt Caroline even delivered babies for families who had moved out of the county. When Mama told me Aunt Caroline only charged her ten dollars, I figured she must have had to deliver a lot of babies to keep alive. After I had heard all this about Aunt Caroline, the thought of her didn’t give me the creeps anymore. In fact, now I thought of her as a great old lady. She must have really enjoyed bringing babies to bring them for so little and to continue doing it at such an old age.

A week later we had our first Christmas in our new house. When I got off work Christmas Eve, Mrs. Claiborne gave me five dollars for a present and paid me seven dollars for helping her do her Christmas cleaning. In addition to that she gave me something that was wrapped so prettily I was tempted not to open it. Twelve dollars was more money than I had ever had at one time. When Mrs. Claiborne first gave it to me I felt like
hugging and kissing her. The Claibornes and the Johnsons were the nicest white people I had ever known.

All the way home I thought of how nice these people were to us. Mrs. Claiborne was white but she and Mr. Claiborne treated me like I was their own daughter. They were always giving me things and encouraging me to study hard and learn as much as I could. Mr. Johnson’s mother, Miss Ola, had done the same. She taught me how to read when I was in school and helped me with my homework when my own mother was unable to do it. Then I began to think about Miss Pearl and Raymond’s people and how they hated Mama and for no reason at all than the fact that she was a couple of shades darker than the other members of their family. Yet they were Negroes and we were also Negroes. I just didn’t see Negroes hating each other so much.

When I got home, Alberta was there baking cakes and Mama was sitting in the kitchen with her. Alberta and Mama got along very well. Alberta was married now and had just moved to the neighborhood about two weeks before. I was glad that Mama would finally have someone to talk to. Now she wouldn’t have to sit out on the front porch and look over at Miss Pearl’s. She and Alberta could visit each other.

The following morning I got up and smelled apples and oranges all over the house. The kitchen was scented with freshly baked cakes and I heard carols playing on the new radio. I thought of the past and what all the other Christmases had been like. For the first time this seemed to me like a real Christmas.

Even though Mama stopped going to Mount Pleasant when we moved from the country, she continued to pay her membership dues. Raymond and Miss Pearl them belonged to Centreville Baptist, the largest Negro church in town. Now that we were living with Raymond Mama started thinking about joining Raymond’s church. She figured that maybe she could get in with Miss Pearl them by going to their church regularly.

One Saturday in early spring she went to town and bought a new dress and hat for herself. That night, before we went to bed, she told us that we’d have to get up early the next morning because we were going to Centreville Baptist. I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time, thinking about going there. Raymond had once taken us for a ride and showed it to us. It was a big white frame building on a brick base with cement steps all the way across the front. It had great big windows painted in different shades of blue and green. I wondered as I fell asleep what it was like inside.

Next morning when Mama woke us up, she was already dressed and our breakfast was on the table. She rushed us
through eating and all and then helped us dress in our best Sunday clothes. “They can’t say we came to church half dressed or lookin’ any kinda way,” she said. All the way to church she kept looking at us in the back seat of the car. “Stop messin’ with that ribbon fo’ you untie it!” she said to Adline, who was playing with the ribbon on one of her three plaits. Mama was so nervous. Once she looked back and Junior had his hand in his mouth and she slapped him. Raymond drove along smiling and acting like he wasn’t nervous but I could tell he was.

When we got there we were late. Everyone was already inside and we could hear them singing. As we walked in the door, two ushers met us. One directed Raymond down the right aisle to the men’s section. The other led us down the left aisle where a group of ladies and children sat. About halfway down, I spotted Miss Pearl, sitting with Cherie and Darlene and their older sisters, Betty and Vera, in the center pews. When they saw us, they started hunching and whispering and I knew they were saying things about us. The usher directed us to seats in the right pews somewhat behind them. I could see them easily now and I was glad the usher had seated us there. I kept looking at them and every now and then they would look back to where we sat. “Stop looking over there at them!” Mama said as she caught me smiling at Cherie and Darlene. I was sorry that I had looked and smiled at them, since they didn’t smile back. Now that they were out in public with Miss Pearl and Betty, they were acting like they didn’t even know us. “After this, I’ll never play with them again,” I thought.

After we were seated for a while, I forgot about them and I began looking around. Since it was pastoral Sunday, Reverend Polk’s regular preaching Sunday, the church was crowded. Just like at Mount Pleasant every member showed up to pay his dues and put on a good front for the pastor. I tried to notice every little thing that happened to see if things were different in a big town church.

First, a couple of deacons began the service by offering two long, boring prayers. As each one finished, he hummed a song and the congregation hummed along with him. At Mount Pleasant the men sang through their noses, and here the deacons were doing the same thing, singing through their noses and hollering and going on. At Mount Pleasant I had even seen men cry in church like women, when they finished praying. At least these men weren’t crying, I thought, but they were hollering just the same. And just like at Mount Pleasant, I couldn’t understand one word of any song. All the old ladies did, though. They were humming right along with them.

While the collection for the sick was being taken up, the choir sang a few songs. This was the first time I had been in a church that had a choir. I used to listen to choirs on the radio sometimes, and this one sounded just as good. They sang “Rock of Ages” and “Stand by Me.” There were young girls among the singers. Some of them didn’t look any older than me. I sat there listening to them and hoping Mama would change her membership to here. “Then I could sing in the choir too,” I thought. “Yes, I am going to join this church, I don’t like Mount Pleasant anyway.”

When the choir finished the songs, one of the deacons announced the amount taken up for the sick. Then Reverend Polk, who had been sitting in the pulpit in the big comfortable pastor’s chair with two deacons at his side, rose to his feet. He raised his hands and everybody stood. The choir then sang “Sweet Jesus,” joined by the congregation. When the song was over Reverend Polk stepped up to the lectern that contained a big open Bible. That Bible was the biggest I had ever seen.

Reverend Polk was a middle-aged minister with snow-white hair. I didn’t understand his hair being that white. The only other person I had seen with hair that white was Miss Ola. Her hair was white because she was very old, but Reverend Polk didn’t look half as old as she was. As soon as he opened his mouth the women in the church started fainting, shouting,
hollering, and carrying on. One large lady jumped straight up out of her seat and fell out stiff as a stick. It took about five deacons to carry her outside. It seemed as though almost every woman in the church was crying. I looked over at Miss Pearl them again and saw tears in the corner of Miss Pearl’s eyes. “She should cry,” I thought. “She shouldn’t even
be
in church and she doesn’t even speak to Mama and she lives right next door to her.” I looked at Mama now and she wasn’t crying but she looked like she would any minute.

I didn’t understand why all these women were crying. I hadn’t heard a word Reverend Polk had said. He looked as though he was mouthing a sermon for a movie or something and the soundtrack wasn’t working. Once or twice he raised his hands and the women hollered even louder. They went on hollering at least fifteen minutes after he stopped working his mouth and sat down, so then I knew they weren’t crying because of anything he said. “They are all probably crying because they are doing somebody wrong,” I thought. “Maybe they don’t speak to their neighbors, just like Miss Pearl, and
she
is crying. They must have done something bad and they think God is going to slap the breath out of them while they are in church.”