Corregidora (Bluestreak) (2 page)

“Naw. He moved out. They said he boxed up your stuff and they put it in storage. They didn’t know whether anybody was going to come and get it or not.”

“They didn’t say where he went?”

“Do you care?”

“Naw. I don’t care. Let me see if you’ve got everything.”

“There were only these two.”

“I didn’t have much.”

He put the boxes down in front of me and moved things around as I directed him. Everything was there.

“The photograph’s in that brown envelope.”

He took it out and looked at it, put it back. He said nothing. He put the boxes at the foot of the bed.

“Tell me when there’s anything you need out of them,” he said.

“I thought you’d say something,” I said.

“He looks like you described him.”

“They say they all get crazy when they get old.”

“How were you
really
taught to feel about him?” he asked, looking at me hard.

“How I told you,” I said, angry.

“My grandmother was white,” he said. “She was a orphan and they had her working out in the fields along with the blacks and treated her like she was one. She was a little girl about nine, ten, ’leven. My granddaddy took her in and raised her and then when she got old enough he married her. She called him Papa. And when they were married, she still called him Papa.”

“Maybe I should ask you how you were taught to feel.”

He said nothing. Then he said, “She never got crazy though. One of the children came out black and the other one came out white. But she never did get crazy though.”

I said nothing. I told him when it was time for me to soak in the tub to help the stitches come out he’d have to help me. I told him they thought I was going home with a husband or a sister. He said he’d do whatever I needed done, then he frowned and said he had to go back downstairs again. I asked him what his mama was, but he was already out the door.

“… His wife was a skinny stuck-up little woman he got from over in Lisbon and had her brought over here. He wouldn’t sleep with her, so she made me sleep with her, so for five years I was sleeping with her
and
him. That was when I was from about thirteen to eighteen. Then she started looking real bad and then she died on account of the climate. But they had me sleeping with both of them.”

“You telling the truth, Great Gram?”

She slapped me.

“When I’m telling you something don’t you ever ask if I’m lying. Because they didn’t want to leave no evidence of what they done—so it couldn’t be held against them. And I’m leaving evidence. And you got to leave evidence too. And your children got to leave evidence. And when it come time to hold up the evidence, we got to have evidence to hold up. That’s why they burned all the papers, so there wouldn’t be no evidence to hold up against them.”

I was five years old then.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

She poked her head in first. A dark, dark woman with straightened hair drawn back and tied with a rubber band. A smooth-complexioned woman, she was close to sixty, but looked forty-five. She came from a family that stayed young-looking.

“Catty, I didn’t think you was coming to see me.”

“Did Tadpole tell you what I told him?”

“Yeah.” I smiled.

“I thought he tell you. I don’t like to come around when women have their evil spells.”

She was inside now, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Why? Cause you get evil too?”

She laughed.

“I brought you some more broth,” she said, getting up. “I put it in here in the refrigerator, and tell Tadpole to heat it up for you and don’t feed it to you when it’s cold.” She came back from the kitchen and sat back down. “You seen your bastard?”

“Naw. Tadpole said he moved out of the hotel and they don’t know where he’s gone.”

“Well, I see him hanging out in front a the place every evening. He hang around there awhile, peeping in ’cause he can’t come in. You know Tadpole barred him from the place?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, well, he peep in and then he go on down the street. He don’t say nothing to Tadpole and Tadpole don’t say nothing to him. Once I saw him I just come on over across the street and said, ‘Mutt, you ain’t got no business hanging around out here, she don’t want to see you.’ He looked at me evil—Christ, that man’s got evil. He looked at me and didn’t say nothing but ‘Shit, Miss Lawson.’ Now, when have he called me Miss Lawson? He call me Cat like everybody else do. He walked on. So I ain’t bother the nigger no more. Just let him stand out there, and walk on when he get ready to walk on.”

I was frowning.

“He ain’t going to bother you no more. I didn’t mean to scare you. I don’t think he mean to bother you no more. Just stand out there and get a look. You know how mens are when they do something like that. After they get a look, they just go on away and leave you alone.”

“Some of em.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I ain’t scared.”

She looked at me harder than she’d ever looked, then she softened.

“It wasn’t just the fall, was it, baby?”

“What do you mean?”

“You was big, wasn’t you?”

“He didn’t know.”

“Did you know?”

“They said I was about a month pregnant, little over a month.”

“They tell him?”

“Naw, I don’t think so.”

“You know which him I’m talking about, don’t you?”

I looked away from her.

She said nothing, then got up. “Well, you start to working again things be all right. You got two men evil over you. I passed Tadpole downstairs he act like he didn’t want to speak. I ask was you up here. I knew you was. He said Yeah. I asked if you was sleeping. He said Naw, he didn’t think you was. But trying to get him to say something was like pulling his teeth, so I just came on upstairs.”

She patted my leg through the sheet.

“I got to get back down now, baby. You be all right. I promised Elvira I’d do her hair.”

“Awright, thanks for the broth. They gave Tadpole a menu, but I don’t think he knows what to do.”

“I be checking up on you then. I just wanted to make sure you wasn’t evil.”

“Naw.”

She patted my leg again, and left.

She hadn’t been long gone when Tadpole came up.

“What did she want?” he asked.

“She just came to bring me some broth and see how I was feeling. She told me to make sure you heat it up before you fed it to me.” I laughed but he didn’t.

“Why she stay so long?”

“You know how it is when you get to talking.”

“I seen her out there talking to Mutt Thomas the other night.”

I frowned. “She was trying to tell him to go away.”

“But he wouldn’t listen, would he?”

“Naw. Why didn’t you tell me he was hanging around out there?”

“I thought you’d find out soon enough. I just didn’t want to bother you now.”

“Well, I found out.”

He started to leave.

“She wasn’t saying nothing about you, Tadpole.”

“I didn’t say she was.”

He went out. I turned over and tried to get some sleep.

I stayed there, and when it was time for the stitches to come out, he’d help me into the tub to soak, and then when a half-hour was up, he’d come with a towel and help me out. He’d never stay in the bathroom. Once, after I’d soaked for a half-hour, he knocked and came in with the towel. He helped me out by the arm. He had a way of looking without looking, only enough to help me in and out. It was a big thick green towel that covered me down to my knees. I held it around me under my breasts.

“The stitches are about gone,” I said. He was still holding my arm. “You haven’t seen the scar.”

He said he hadn’t looked.

“You can feel it,” I said. “I can just reach down and feel it. It’s going to leave a bad one.”

“I reckon,” he said, helping me back to the bed. I sat down on the edge of it, drying myself off. He went back to let the water out. He came back and put my feet up. I handed him the towel, and got under the cover.

“You ought to be able to get in and out by yourself.”

“It’s only so I won’t slip,” I said.

“The doctor wants to see you again in a couple of days.”

“I hope that means real food when I get back.”

“Maybe.”

He was sitting near the bed and I took his hand and put it under the sheet.

“You can feel it, can’t you?”

He said yes. I thought he was going to take his hand away, but he waited for me to.

“It’s worse when you touch it than when you look at it.”

“I suppose. Most scars are.”

I said nothing, then asked, “Has he still been out there?”

“Yeah, he’s still out there.”

“You haven’t said anything?”

“Naw, he’s outside. I can’t bar him from looking.”

“Tell him that ‘can’t come in’ means ‘can’t look in’ either.”

He laughed. “I can’t tell him that.”

“You could make him go away.”

“
I
can’t make him go away.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. He’s waiting for you, that’s all. See you come out and sing, and know you’re all right.”

“That’s what Cat said. Is that what he said?”

“I ain’t talked to him.”

“I thought maybe you might have.”

“Naw. He looks and I look. He knows I don’t want him in here and he don’t come.”

“My butt.”

“What?”

“He ain’t come in cause he ain’t seen what he wants to see yet.”

“He ain’t coming in then.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

He said nothing. He stood up.

“After I see the doctor, I want to see a lawyer,” I said.

He nodded. He patted my belly through the cover, and went back to finish cleaning out the tub.

When he came back through, I had my eyes closed. I could feel him bending down, but he must have stopped midway because he didn’t finish.

“I’m awake,” I said. I didn’t open my eyes.

He bent down and kissed me. Then I heard the door close.

“I am going to take you off the pills and see how you feel,” the doctor said. He had finished examining me, and I was sitting in the chair near his desk. “If you start getting nauseated again, take them. I want to see you in two more weeks. Is Mr. Corregidora with you?”

“That’s
my
name, not my husband’s.”

“Oh, I see. Is Mr. Thomas with you? When I looked out there I saw a man standing with you. I’d like to see him.”

“Naw.”

“Aw, okay.”

“You can take Mutt’s name off there anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m filing suit for divorce.”

“Well, when I looked out and saw that man standing there I thought you’d stopped blaming him.”

I said nothing, and stood up. When I got outside, Tadpole came over and took my elbow.

“See you in two weeks,” the nurse said.

“Okay.”

“How’d it go?” Tad asked.

“Awright.”

“What do you mean awright?”

“He took me off the pills, unless I get nauseated again.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

We walked to the door.

“He thought you were Mutt,” I said quietly. “I mean, my husband. He thought you were Mr. Corregidora.”

“What?” He was frowning.

“He didn’t know I kept my name and Mutt kept his.”

“When do you come back?”

“Two weeks.”

“I mean what time?”

“Same time.”

“Did he say you could work?”

“I didn’t ask. I forgot to. Should I go back and ask?”

“Naw.”

“Yes, I’d better,” I said. “I was planning to start whether he said so or not.”

He took my arm slightly, but I went anyway. We were standing in the door. Tadpole stood aside to let somebody pass. I asked him to wait for me. “Where would I go?” he asked.

When I got back, Tadpole was still frowning.

“What did he say?”

“Anytime I feel like it.”

“I’ll go ask him myself.”

“No. He said anytime I feel like it, after the next two weeks. He said it meant building up time. One hour one night. Maybe hour and a half the next. Like that. Till I build myself back up again.”

“I would’ve asked him if you hadn’t told me,” he said. “I’ll get you a stool.”

“I don’t work sitting down,” I said.

He said nothing, and we got in the car. When I looked over at him, he was looking as if he was mad at me. When he saw me watching him, he looked ahead quickly, and turned on the ignition.

When we got back I said I was tired and wanted to lie down. It was around noon. I’d had a ten o’clock appointment.

“Same time, same position,” I said.

“What?”

He was hanging up my sweater and his jacket.

“He had me up on the table so he could look at the scar. Every time you go to the doctor they say, ‘Get up on the table’ or ‘Take your clothes off and get up on the table.’ Somebody ought to say Naw.”

“That’s what Cat did once. She said the man told her, ‘Get up on the table.’ So she said, ‘I told that bastard, Naw, I wasn’t getting up on the table. And he didn’t make me neither.’ ”

“How you know?”

“You know Cat talk the same way in front of men as she do women,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You know when she was married to Joe Hunn he broke the window out of his car and come in and said, ‘Honey, you got a piece of cardboard?’ and she went in and got him a Kotex box. He just as silly as she is though. He used it. People said, ‘Man, where you get that thing?’ Making men laugh and embarrassing women. I don’t see why they didn’t stay together, cause they was just alike.”

“You never can tell,” I said.

He said nothing. Then he said, “You know what I mean. Both. Not silly. But bold. You know.”

“Bold silly.”

“Well … How did he say the scar looked?”

“He said it looked good. I said if this supposed to look good I hate to see one supposed to look bad.”

He raised up my blouse. “It looks good,” he said.

I put my blouse back in my skirt.

“Did you get a chance to talk to the lawyer for me?”

“Yeah. He said he’ll take care of it.”

“Well, when he gets ready for me to sign anything, tell him I’ll be in there to sign it.”