Corregidora (Bluestreak) (12 page)

“ ‘I wouldn’t mean you no harm,’ he said. Still that soft voice, almost like I really couldn’t hear it now, or like I didn’t want to hear it. ‘I wouldn’t mean you no harm, woman.’

“I think I mighta even been liking him calling me that, like men never did call women that before, or like that was just a special name for me, his special name for me.

“ ‘You ain’t leavin again?’ he asked.

“ ‘I haven’t left,’ I said. I didn’t know whether he meant imaginary leavin or real leavin. But I was still sitting there.

“ ‘I want to walk you home. I’d like to walk you home tonight,’ he said.

“ ‘I live kind of a distance. We live over in Bracktown.’

“ ‘You take the bus?’

“ ‘Yeah.’

“ ‘I ride you over there then.’

“I said nothing, but he took it to mean yes. Maybe it had meant yes.

“ ‘Who you live with?’

“ ‘My mama and my grandmama.’

“ ‘Maybe tha’s why you seem like a old-fashioned girl.’

“I said nothing.

“ ‘I got to go over here and wait on these people. Don’t leave now.’

“I said I wouldn’t.

“I waited for him, and he stood waiting on the bus with me, and rode me home. He didn’t even try to do nothing that first time. He didn’t even ask me for a kiss. It was like we got along real well, like I wouldn’t even believe you could get along that well with a man. But then I know it was something my body wanted, just something my body wanted. Naw. It just seem like I just keep telling myself that, and it’s got to be something else. It’s always something else, but it’s easier if it’s just that. It just always makes it easier. And then maybe he just wanted something else.

“He rode me home again, and then one night it had got kind of cold. You know, it was Indian summer and you never really could tell in the morning how it would be in the evening. I always took a sweater or jacket or something to work, but he didn’t, cause he lived just right up the road, but, you know, riding me home all that way, he’d get cold, so he asked if he could go home and get his jacket first. He asked if I wanted to wait downstairs for him, but I said Naw, I said I’d go up. I guess I was thinking if I didn’t it would be like saying that I didn’t trust him. And then I was trusting him, and I was trusting myself too, because I really didn’t think nothing would happen. But then he was getting his jacket, and then he all of a sudden touched my hand, and was talking about my hands, how I had nice long hands, and asked if I played piano, and asked if I minded if he touched me. Naw, I didn’t mind, because I didn’t mind it. Because I didn’t think anything would happen, and I trusted myself, because I knew I wasn’t looking for a man.”

She stopped. I didn’t ask her to go on. I knew she would go on when she was ready. She just kept sitting there for a long time. I just kept watching the side of her face, her mouth tightening again, the rows of plaits, the bun in the back, her profile. It was like I hadn’t seen anyone so still as she’d suddenly gotten, more like when a movie freezes than in real life. Then the quivering started about her mouth again.

“It was like my whole body wanted you, Ursa. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, I can understand.”

“I knew you was gonna come out a girl even while you was in me. Put my hand on my belly, and knew you was gonna be one of us. Little long-haired girl on my lap. You come out baldheaded though. They just kept looking at me, Mama and Gram. I knew they hated me then. Cause you come out all baldheaded. White skin before you got the little pigment you got now, and baldheaded. They hated me, but then your hair start to sprout, and got real long. I used to put a little ribbon on your head so people would know you was a girl. People didn’t know whether you was a boy or a girl … I knew you’d be a girl. I knew my body would have a girl.”

I said nothing.

She looked at me quickly, and then looked away again.

“He kept asking if he could touch me certain places, and I kept saying yes. And then all of a sudden it was like I felt the whole man in me, just felt the whole man in there. I pushed him out. It was like it was just that feeling of him in there. And nothing else. I hadn’t even given myself time to feel anything else before I pushed him out. But he must have … I … still that memory, feeling of him in me. I wouldn’t let myself feel anything. It was like a surprise. Like a surprise when he got inside. Just that one time. I didn’t go see him anymore. I wouldn’t even have my lunch there. Once he came to the depot and asked me why was I fighting him. I wouldn’t say nothing to him. Then he just left me alone. He said he knew what I was now, and he could play that game too. I didn’t know what he meant, but it made me feel bad. When I knew about you, Great Gram went and talked to him. I begged her not to, but he came and married me and then … he left me.”

I wanted to ask if she would have left him, but I didn’t. What I wanted to know now was if she had planned to leave him, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

“Are you still there?”

I was silent.

“I went to see him only one time. He seen you. You was about two the last time he seen you, so I know you don’t remember him.”

“No.”

“He was staying at some boarding house up in Cincinnati. I hadn’t heard from him, and then he sent me this money. No letter, just this money and his address on the outside. I was mad at first, and then, Ursa, I didn’t want him back or nothing. I even said my reason was to go give him his money back, cause I didn’t need it, or wont it. When I got up there I just said I come to talk to him. Then I found out it was only just to get me up there. He knew when he sent that, I be up there. I was up there. He just stood in his door for a moment looking at me. He had on these khaki-colored pants, shirt on but chest all out anyway. I went in and he closed the door. He turned on me and first thing he said was, ‘Bitch.’ He said it again. ‘Bitch.’

“I said, ‘Don’t hurt me.’ I knew he was going to. I said, ‘Help me, Martin, but don’t hurt me. Just let me come here, and say hello, and ask you how you’re doing. I just wonted to tell you things are all right with me and Ursa. I don’t need the money.’

“ ‘Shit. Money’s not how I helped you. I helped you that night, didn’t I?’ He held my arm. ‘Didn’t I?’

“ ‘You’re hurting me.’

“ ‘I helped you that night.’

“ ‘No, you didn’t, you hurt me.’

“ ‘I lived in that house long enough to know I helped you. How long was it? Almost two years, wasn’t it? That’s long enough for any man to know if he’s helped. How could I have missed. I mean, the first time. The other times were all miss, weren’t they, baby? They were all miss, weren’t they?’

“He squeezed tighter. I kept trying to get away, but then he started slapping me, just slapping me all over the face. One time it was like he was going to go for some place else, like he was going to go straight for my cunt, or for my belly, or some place like that, but then he stopped himself, and just kept slapping me all over my face, twisting me, and slapping me all over my face. I didn’t think I’d get out of there. I didn’t think I would. I started to scream. And then I said, Naw, to myself. I said, Naw, I wasn’t going to scream for no nigger, and having people coming up there and make me feel worse than I did already. I said, Naw, I wasn’t going to scream for no nigger.

“But all of a sudden he just stopped. He just stopped and stood stone still. He hated me, Ursa. I know he did. I was holding myself all up on my face, and I know I was going to be black and blue all over, it hurt so bad. I was just hugging my face.

“ ‘Ain’t I helped you, baby?’ He was trying to grin, but it just made him look like the devil. ‘Woman?’

“I didn’t answer. I just kept hugging my face.

“ ‘Hurt, don’t it?’ he asked.

“I said nothing. I just wanted to get out of there. I didn’t want him to do anything else, and it was like I was daring him not to touch me again, but I knew there wasn’t nothing I could do if he did. I knew I wouldn’t do nothing even if I could.

“ ‘What was you afraid of?’ he asked.

“I said nothing.

“ ‘You could’ve let me. I know you could have let me. What were you afraid of, Correy?’ He always called me Correy, you know.

“I still wouldn’t say nothing. I never did tell him. I never would. I think he just thought I was just afraid of him being a man, or being too big, or too much for me or something. I never would tell him.

“He just let me go on to the door, then. Or I thought he was going to let me. He kept looking at me like he was hurt, and then when I tried to get around him to the door, he stood aside. But then all of a sudden he grabbed my pants. I had on these purple pants, the kind with the elastic waistband. He grabbed them by the waist, like when you’re grabbing a child or something. He grabbed them and the elastic broke. I caught them before they fell down. He said he was sorry, but he didn’t look like he was. I didn’t bring anything with me, cause I was just going to see him, you know, and come on back home, so I didn’t have anything. I was holding them up. I thought he would give me a pin or something but he didn’t. He just stood looking at me, like he was real, real calm now, and then all at once the evil come back, and then he said, ‘Get out.’ He told me to get out. I ain’t never seen a man look like that, Ursa. When you see a man look like that, you don’t never forget it. It stay with you all your life. He told me to get on out of there and I did. He said, ‘Go on down the street, lookin like a whore. I wont you to go on down the street, lookin like a whore.’ I kind of looked at him, you know, and it was like I could see all that hurt there. He hadn’t really softened, but I could still see all that hurt there. ‘You took me bout as far as a woman can take a man without givin him nothing,’ he said. ‘Remember?’ I went out. I didn’t want to remember. I had to walk down the street, holding up my purple pants with one hand and holding my mouth with the other. My head was all hanging it hurt so bad, and I could feel it turning black and blue, and peoples was all watching. I know what they was thinking. The womens was looking at me all disgusted, and I was scared to borrow a pin offa somebody. Cause if I asked one of the mens for one, they would’ve thought I wonted something. This man leaning against this building kind of stood out and said, ‘Baby, you know where Bud’s Angel Bar is?’ I just kept on walking. He said, ‘Bitch, I ain’t good enough for you, is I? I ain’t good enough for you. Well, you ain’t good enough for me neither.’ I knew what he thought I was, but I just kept on walking.”

I had leaned farther across the table, watching her. Just the side of her face was enough for me, she didn’t even have to show me the rest, but she looked around and showed me the rest.

“I only went back to him once. He was staying at this boarding house, Ursa. All he did was start beating on me. He started beating on me.”

I went over and put her head against my thighs.

“I carried him to the point where he ended up hating me, Ursa. And that’s what I knew I’d keep doing. That’s what I knew I’d do with any man.”

“I’ll walk you to the highway.”

“You don’t have to, Mama.”

“I want to.”

“Ursa.”

“What, Mama?”

“I know about those other things you would never let me know.”

I said nothing. She was telling me she knew about my own private memory.

“Do you want me to talk?”

“Sometime when you’re back here and feel you have to.”

“Awright.”

She pulled her shawl around her tighter. I fingered my trade beads.

“You see all these colors in them, these formations?” I asked.

She looked at my neck, and touched them. We stopped walking for a moment.

“They form naturally,” I said. “They just form naturally that way. No one paints them on.”

“Those stripes too?”

“Yes.”

She looked like she couldn’t believe it, but I knew she did. She kept touching them for a time and then we started walking. We walked slowly.

“You didn’t ask where your father is now, Ursa.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know.”

We kept walking. We walked so slow it was almost like we weren’t really walking. We had left early enough for me not to miss the bus, though, as if she had wanted to stand down there with me as long as possible before I had to get up on the bus, and she had to turn around and go back up to that house. The only thing that had changed in it was the kitchen, the old iron coal stove replaced with a gas one—the kind you used bottle gas from a tank outside the house, like people do in the country where there are no gas lines—and the old icebox replaced by a Frigidaire. She had moved the icebox into a corner and used it for storage space. And the old iron stove was still rusting in the backyard. The one they used to empty ashes from, lifting out those big iron rings in the top. That stove had always frighted me. When I was older, though, they’d make me take the tray out, and empty the ashes against the side of the road. The big bed was still in the middle room, except she had moved the trundle bed out of the front room, and put it in there too. I didn’t know whether she slept in the big bed or the trundle one, and that wasn’t something I felt I could ask her. It would have seemed ridiculous to an outsider, but to us I think it would have been a kind of prying she didn’t want, or need.
They’d slept there before I did.
And in the front room that ageless china cabinet. The big one with all the good dishes and the silverware that was never taken out. I could never remember its ever having come out, even on holidays. The only time it was opened was to be dusted or polished. I’d never looked, but I think it had been imported from Brazil, or I used to think so. It was an expensive dark-mahogany thing, the best thing we had in the house. Great Gram used to be in charge of it at first, and then Grandmama, and now I guess Mama was. When I had gone through the house, it was still sparkling.

After a while, she began speaking again, hugging her shawl to her. It sounded almost as if she were speaking in pieces, instead of telling one long thing.

“After he come, they didn’t talk to me about making generations anymore or about anything that happened with Corregidora, but Martin and me could hear them in there talking between theyselves. We’d be in the front room, and they’d be back in there in the bedroom, Great Gram telling Mama how Corregidora wouldn’t let her see some man because he was too black.” Mama kept talking until it wasn’t her that was talking, but Great Gram. I stared at her because she wasn’t Mama now, she was Great Gram talking: “He wouldn’t let me see him, cause he said he was too black for me. He liked his womens black, but he didn’t wont us with no black mens. It wasn’t color cause he didn’t even wont us with no light black mens, cause there was a man down there as light as he was, but he didn’t even wont us with him, cause there was one girl he caught with him, and had her beat, and sold the man over to another plantation, cause I think he just wont to get rid of him anyway. Cause Corregidora himself was looking like a Indian—if I said that to him I have my ass off—so that this light black man looked more like a white man than he did, so I just think he wont any excuse to get rid of him. I don’t even know how he got him. He didn’t buy him himself, I think he just come in with a load of other mens they wont to work out in the fields, cause he had cane, you know. But anyway he wouldn’t let me see him, cause he said a black man wasn’t nothing but a waste of pussy, and wear me out when it came to the other mens. He didn’t send nothing but the rich mens in there to me, cause he said I was his little gold pussy, his little gold piece, and it didn’t take some of them old rich mens no time, and then I still be fresh for him. But he said he didn’t wont no waste on nothing black. Some of them womens he had just laying naked, and just sent trash into them. But some of us he called hisself cultivating us, and then didn’t send nothing but cultivated mens to us, and we had these private rooms, you know. But some of these others, they had to been three or four or five whores fucking in the same room. But then if we did something he didn’t like he might put us in there and send trash into us, and then we be catching everything then. So after that, first time he just talked to me real hard, said he didn’t wont no black bastard fucking me, he didn’t wont no black bastard fucking all in his piece. He was real mad. He grab hold of me down between my legs and said he didn’t wont nothing black down there. He said if he just catch me fucking something black, they wouldn’t have no pussy, and he wouldn’t have none neither. And then he was squeezing me all up on my pussy and then digging his hands up in there. We was up in his room. That’s where he always bring me when he wont to scold me about something, or fuck with me. Him and his wife was living in separated rooms then. Then he was just digging all up in me till he got me where he wonted me and then he just laid me down on that big bed of his and started fucking me …