Ellen Foster (4 page)

Her mama works on quilts right much. She can do flowers, dutch boys and girls, just square blocks, anything you order. She sells them to white women from town and they turn around and sell them again for a pretty penny. That would gall me.

I do not know where Starletta and her mama and daddy came from. Maybe town. They live regular but most colored people have a grandmama or two and a couple dozen cousins in the same house. A family up the road had fifteen people in one house and when they ran out of plates they ate off records. Records like you play. I know that for a fact.

Starletta’s daddy wears a green coat and a matching hat. Castro has a hat just like it. He, not Castro, has never bothered me and he is the only colored man that does not buy
liquor from my daddy. I do not know what he spends his money on.

Come on and see what Santa Claus brought Starletta is what he says for me to do.

She looks at me and grins. She has one hand in a bucket of Lincoln logs and the other one headed for her nose.

She has a right to grin. Her toys look good. I would be proud my own self. A orange and green town that folds up in its own carry case, a colored baby big as a live one in a cradle, picture books, some socks and clothes, and the Lincoln logs.

Starletta still had on her nightgown and she needed to be washed.

You got to wash before I will play with you is what I told her.

She went and stood by the stove while her mama wiped her down and put her on a outfit.

I am too grown to enjoy most of Starletta’s toys but if they are new I can make do. I know how long her toys last. Her baby dolls smell like her in a day or two and if she gets any crayons she breaks them just to hear them snap. I will not color with a broke crayon. I had her bring her last box to my house and I taped them back together like they are supposed to be. She did not like it.

We played and put the little block-headed people all about in the town. She does not go to town like I do so she had to be told where everything went. But even I had a couple people left over and had to look on the front of the carry case to see how they had it all set up. After I got it done I told her to get a hard look at it so next time she would know. She leaned in
close and looked up one street and down the other but I knew it would not stick in her head.

Her daddy asked me if I want to stay and eat with them.

No. I’ll just stick around until you finish if that would be OK with you.

You know you are welcome to stay. You know it’s OK, her mama said to me. You know it is.

My mama

I stay and mess with the little town while they eat.

Do I have to watch?

I could go.

Starletta slides out of her chair and her mama says to take something you better eat.

Starletta is not big as a minute.

She came at me with a biscuit in her hand and held it to my face. No matter how good it looks to you it is still a colored biscuit.

Her mama and daddy get up from the table and one said they got something for me.

For me?

You have been a good girl. Right?

Lord yes. What is it? Is it in the box? What could it be in a box for me?

Open it up. Forget the hocus-pocus said the magician.

Open it up!

Oh my God it is a sweater. I like it so much. I do not tell a story when I say it does not look colored at all.

I think I would like to put it on now if that is OK I can slip it over my shirt and wear it I say and I think I need to cry a little.

You want to open your gift while I look or do you want to wait for me to leave?

That was mighty sweet of you. You didn’t have to do it.

I had to.

Well well well, the mama says and gets up to put it on her stove.

I can see from here it does look good. It really brightens up the place.

I have to go now. I need to get on back home.

Stay here. What are you going to do when you get back?

Lord I stay busy.

You come on back when you want to, he says. Then he wants to know if my daddy is at home today.

I have not seen hide nor hair.

If he’s there when you get home you come on back here if you want to. Come on back here, he says.

When I do get home he is still gone. I wonder if he has not drove off in the ditch somewhere and froze to death. Nobody would be out on Christmas to find him before he got blue and solid. If he is just hurt and gets froze can they thaw him out to normal?

Ask me what I would do in this case.

While he is gone I stay in the living room and watch the television. Whenever I hear him drive up the path I go to my room and stay until he leaves or I think of somewhere to go out the window.

It is much better if he is gone. If nothing jumps out at you to do then you walk around until something looks good.

I could dress in my mama’s clothes but they are gone. A while back my mama’s mama sent one of her girls here and
she loaded up everything of my mama’s in a big box and hauled it to the car herself. I just stood looking. Oh all the shoes and stockings worn and not worn. All the dresses and underthings and necklaces I never saw my mama in. She said to tell my daddy the message was plain and simple. Now get it right. It was she had rather some real niggers have my mama’s things than any of us that drink and carry on like trash.

That is hard to figure out because you know I do not drink and I would not even eat in a colored house.

So I do not have the clothes to dress myself in. And I have run out of books.

The bookmobile does not run on the holiday so I cannot go down to the crossroads to meet it.

There is nothing in the world like that bookmobile. A bus from town full of stories to check out and take home. You take them back in two weeks and get some more. It costs to be late.

They get the books from the big library and it is like you are really there except you are in a bus.

Now I like that.

When I run out of borrowed stories I look through the encyclopedias. I know they cost some money and I do not know how they got in this house. I do not even know if they are mine or exactly who they belong to.

The S book under sneeze has a picture of a man and his sneeze froze in mid air. They took the picture fast and the droplets number in the millions.

The P book has two poems and then they tell you what the poems mean. I do not understand why because they are written
in English. They tell you all about poetry and list some poems you might look up on your own and enjoy.

Sometimes I read the Shakespeare poem slow and out loud with feeling because that is the way it sounds best. The one they have about flinging a scarve over the arc makes me want to whirl around and say it. Say it and whirl around and if I had my mama’s scarve I would fling it and pull it over the arc and half over it and say it.

Dolphin and I have been in these woods too long. I have no idea how long we have been gone from home but it seems like a while. I thought this was a fine idea and it would have been if I had brought something to read.

We could go on back. You know they are all doing something in a group this afternoon. My new mama likes for us to do that every now and then but she does not push me.

There are five of us here. I like everybody but I do not know them good.

If Dolphin had a mind he would be glad to go back too. I put the blanket and the saddle back on him and tell him to go.

When we get back he gets a good rubbing with the wide brush. That is bound to feel good.

They are making a terrarium. She said last week she planned to bring some springtime in this house. Who would have thought of this?

I can do this. Just let me get my coat off.

Oh yes. A terrarium. I have seen them in the stores. And we are going to make one.

Let Ellen put in some dirt.

OK. You have to keep the dirt off the sides of the glass so people can peek in and see how nice it all looks.

Have you done this before? my new mama wonders.

No. But it makes sense to do it like this.

That’s good. Now let the others try. Everybody gets to put something in.

The last thing we all made was a fish tank. She got the tank, the fish and the accessories from town and told us all how to keep the fish living. Everybody was in charge of a fish. If they eat too much they will bust. Mine was blue and had lips bigger than the rest. I named him John but said I would change the name as soon as I thought of something extra ordinary.

Let me put in one more plant. A fern.

And that just about does it. Let’s put it by the window so everyone can enjoy it.

The light hits it right and it will get some sunshine all afternoon. We all stand and look at it.

Are you OK? Ellen? Are you all right? Don’t you like the terrarium? You did a nice job.

I’m fine. I’m just hungry is all I told her.

Well I would like to get your hair washed before I start supper. Go get yourself a towel and the soap and meet me at the kitchen sink.

It is the best when she washes my hair. Not that I could not do it myself but it has got so long that it is just easier for her to manage.

When it was warm she would sit with me on the back steps and comb out the knots for me. Where did you get this pretty hair? You have such pretty hair she would say to me.

I need a stool for my head to reach the water. She lets me feel the water with my hand and when it is perfect I tell her. I put my head into the water and it is warm over my whole body even on the places the water does not flow. She rubs and I feel her long fingers on my head and pray that it takes a long time for me to be clean.

Does that feel good?

Oh yes that feels very good.

I lay on my bed where the sun has come in the window and made it bright and warm. My hair hangs off the side so I do not leave a damp place.

I see the mirror from the bed. No matter how I turn my head when I look I still seem like a stranger in my own self.

My daddy showed up at my house less and less. I never put it together where he was staying. I do know he did not have the nerve to go out and take up with a hussy.

He did show up on New Year’s Eve. Of course I went and hid when I heard him and a whole pack of colored men come in the door.

They came in my house and went through my refrigerator laughing at my froze food and fruit juices. They got my bread and jelly and made sandwiches and you could hear their jaws smacking all through the house.

I hope they choke. I hope they choke and die and I will set the house on fire and burn them all yes even my own daddy up and that will be all.

They call him Missa Bill.

Missa Bill. Ha.

I want them to leave because my window is froze shut.

Looking all in my cabinets. I hear them open and slam the doors looking for something to eat that is not froze.

Who said they could come in my house and have a free-for-all? Who said they could be here?

My daddy has got his guitar out now and thinks he can play like a star. He will hang his head and sing the Tennessee Waltz but his favorite is On Top of Old Smokey.

He says he will play a tune for old times sake.

Oh Lord they all know the words and how many are in there I cannot say but I know it must be five or six drinking whiskey out of my glasses and singing On Top of Old Smokey.

One tells my daddy this sure is a nice house. Shame for a man to live by his self.

My daddy says he has a girl running around loose somewhere.

That same colored man asked him how old is his girl.

He says I am nine or ten.

I married Delphi when she was thirteen, he tells my daddy. Yours is just about ripe. You gots to git em when they is still soff when you mashum. That is how that man said it.

My daddy did not say anything back but the colored men laughed anyway. I bet he made a face.

They stayed there for a while so I got in the closet.

What else do you do when your house is run over by colored men drinking whiskey and singing and your daddy is worse than them all put together?

You pray to God they forget about you and the sweet young things that are soff when you mashum and how good one feels when she is pressed up by you. You get out get out before one can wake up from being passed out on your floor. You get out
before they start to dream about the honey pie and the sugar plums. Step over the sleeping arms and legs of dark men in shadows on your floor. You want to see a light so bad that it comes to guide you through the room and out the door where a man stops you and the light explodes into a sound that is your daddy’s voice.

Get away from me he does not listen to me but touches his hands harder on me. That is not me. Oh no that was her name. Do not oh you do not say her name to me. That was her name. You know that now stop no not my name.

I am Ellen.

I am Ellen.

He pulls the evil back into his self and Lord I run. Run down the road to Starletta. Now to the smoke coming out of the chimney against the night sky I run.

Down the path in the darkness I gather my head and all that is spinning and flying out from me and wonder oh you just have to wonder what the world has come to.

7

I will give you a dollar is what I told Starletta’s mama when she let me in the door. I do not care for the extras like food or the toilet. I know this is not a hotel.

She wanted to know what was wrong at my house.

That is funny to me.

I told her I got myself locked out just by accident and as soon as it is light I will head on back.

Her mama said I was welcome and to put my money up that they do not take money from children.

Since her husband was gone to look after his mama in the hospital I could sleep in the bed with her.

Starletta was rooted in good on her cot.

When I got up in the morning I was surprised because it did not feel like I had slept in a colored house. I cannot say I officially slept in the bed because I stayed in my coat on top of the covers.

I went on home and waited on the edge of the woods until
I saw them all leave in the truck. I went in the house and then loaded up everything I damn well please in a box. All that was left to pay the bills and a bag of old nickels he kept hid where I had to crawl up to reach. I got two changes of clothes and put my Christmas presents in the box. It looked like the colored men had played with my microscope but they did not break it.