A Piece of Mine (6 page)

Anyway, Laylonny was a fine girl, grew up good, good to her mama and all and got married up with the Jackson boy when they was both young and thought they was in love. Say what you willomay, we all goes through it! But they love
didn’t catch on and hold cause that boy took to beatin up on her! Yes, he did! Now the first three, four times he did that she just took it with a smile cause she didn’t know nothing yet, but after while, when she hafta be lookin at all them marks and bruises and a black eye or two for a week or more, she commence to understanding that that wasn’t no love to cleave to, so that girl packed her good sense up and left him!

Well, honey, say what you willomay, some mens don’t know what life is all about. After she left, he commence to try to get her to let him kiss on some of them same spots, including her behind, but seem he had done beat and kicked em too much already for that so they never did get on no more! No! She moved back to her mama’s, who had done got down sick, and commence to taking care herself and her mama! Oh, I tell you, say what you willomay, she is a good woman!

But you know what, it’s some strange things in this world. That girl’s mama didn’t like her no more! Don’t know was it because when that chile was young and she was raisin her, she had been a little wild, you know? And might not have liked to think her life was over and all the good times gone. Cause her daughter was so good lookin! And built so good! And still had some good times to look to. I don’t know, who knows bout people anyway? Do you?

Well, anyway, the county was givin that girl some money to care for her mother and buy food and she was doing just that. But one day that damn fool woman told the visiting social lady that that girl didn’t do nothing round there and didn’t need no money. Well, they cut that stuff right off! The money! And that woman, Laylonny, had to get out of there and get a job
AND
go rushing home to take care of her mother,
BOTH!
And did it! Well, pretty soon it was pretty clear that Laylonny’s mother was going to die … and everybody commence to going over there doing what they could and mongst them was one or two fellows who could see how
good Laylonny was and how good she was to look at, and the one who had done lived in the city awhile, saw a big difference between her and them city women. Say what you willomay, there
IS
a difference! Now, he took up a lot of time with her and soon her heart was gone again and just after her mother passed, they got married up!

Now … I know they was happy and she still was a good woman cooking, cleaning, working part time, all that, you see what I mean? But he could not stand her dipping snuff and she dipped snuff, you know. And spittin in her little cup alla time. He would
DIE
if they had some company or he had a man friend over and she had a lip full of that snuff! Lord a mercy!! He did not like that!! He threatened, he raved, I don’t know what all he didn’t do to break that woman’s habit. Tried to get her to smoke them cigarettes even, but she didn’t like that. Everything! He tried everything! And do you know, say what you willomay, there be some fools out here! That man let that snuff run him away from his happy home! Well, I guess it wasn’t so happy then, like it had been. But, instead of saying, “go wash your mouth out so we can kiss awhile,” he just up and left, back to the city. Left his job and everything!

Wellll, no sooner he got back to the city, he got hold of a ciety lady, like he wanted, I guess, and you know, she didn’t dip no snuff. And didn’t do nothing else either!! Chile, that woman (my son told me this, he go to the city sometime) liked $100 suits and dresses, diamonds and furriers! She didn’t do
NO
cookin! You hear me?
NONE!
Not even breakfast before a man go to work! He had to take her out every night he didn’t order something brought in! Heard she wasn’t too clean, either. Say what you willomay, some people look so good and clean when they come out, like they fresh out the fruit stand, but when they go home it’s like that fruit thrown in a garbage can!

Anyway, he wasn’t
REAL
dumb and so he soon got to seeing which way the arrow pointed and jumped into that
car of his which didn’t have no fender on one side in the back and a dent on the other fender (all that had happened since he been back in the city). Anyway, he drove right on back down here thout quitting his job up there. Went straight to his old job and got that back, then went to my son’s house and cleaned up and slept some and I know for myself, he went and circled Laylonny’s house
SEVERAL
times fore daybreak!

Now, that next day … it was a beautiful day, just like this one, only a little rain drizzling while the sun was shining, devil whipping his wife, you know? And she was coming up the road like she is now, and that man was in that car just a following side her real slow like she walk. She prob’ly went slower that morning so she could get to hear it all, you know how we womens are. Well, he was just a talking to her trying to splain what all everything was and she would nod her head and look off into the trees. Every once in awhile she would say something, I don’t know what cause I can’t read lips yet! By time she got to the bus stop, he done jumped out that car and runned and grabbed Laylonny. Now I don’t know was it rain or tears running down Laylonny’s face, but it was all twisted up like crying do you. And when that Ralph man grabbed her and squeezed her she just simpered and sputtered and that juice in her lip shot out, just here and there, not a lot, you know, and maybe a little trickle down her chin and all. She musta spit when he was getting out the car. Anyway, she really broke into crying then! When she seen that snuff getting out, here and there, and he was justa trying to hug her and kiss her and turning her head, she say, “No, no, I got snuff in my mouth, Ralph!” And he grab her head with his hands and held it still and said, “I love you! I don’t give a got-damn if you do!!!”

And I’ll be hot-damn if he didn’t mean it! That was four years ago and they still together!!

Good morning, Laylonny!

I
SHOULDN’T
be tellin this secret, but you can just call me Ms. Can’thelpit cause I just can’t help it! I got to tell it!

You can say what you willomay but I believe the Lord gives you something every time something else is taken away! If you got half a piece of sense, you will find that to be true. Just call me Ms. Senseless cause it has taken me so many years to truly know what that means and then I learned it from someone else … one of my friends, Willetta. I call her “Letta.”

Letta and me kinda grew up together in this little one horse town, but I believe no matter how small a town is, it’s still got some of every kind of people the whole world got in it.

Letta’s people was as good to her as two poor people could be. She was their only child, and the Lord had sure blessed them in that one thing. They both worked hard. The mama sewing and cooking for white folks and the daddy farming his own little piece of land and doing odd jobs and also working at the plant just outside of town there. They must have loved each other too, another blessing of the Lord’s,
cause they sure needed it. Letta studied hard in school cause they was planning for her to go on to college and she really was smart! Me, myself, I just dreamed of getting married someday. Ms. Dreamy, you could call me.

But when Letta was just past fifteen years, her mama had taken a nice lunch over to her daddy’s job at the plant, and as the devil would have it, one of them evil white men who was sitting in his tractor, having only a warm beer for his lunch, decided to “play” a game on Letta’s daddy and slowly backed that tractor up and claimed, when he planned to stop, the tractor kept goin backward! Well, Letta’s mama and papa was crushed up bad! The mother lost her legs, had to have em both cut off! And her daddy’s ankles and knees and hips, and shoulders was pushed together and he never could straighten out again. Leastways the doctor didn’t think there was no big reason for goin through too much trouble for em cause what was they good for anyway? I heard that myself cause I use to, and still do, kitchen work for some of the best folks here in town, and I hears a lot! You can call me Ms. Goodear, cause I got em! Well, say what you willomay, you got to know what’s goin on around you, if for nothin else cept to stay out the way of other folks’ tractors!

Well, back to Letta and her troubles! The plant said it wasn’t no fault of theirs cause it was all in “fun,” not at working, so they didn’t have to pay nothin! Nothin! The hospital sent a big bill, and I don’t know what for, cause Letta’s mama and daddy came out of that hospital just like they went in, bent up and crushed! Ain’t no pills in the world worth all the money was on that bill! Letta just put that bill in a drawer and shut it! Was a nice white man and his wife her mama had worked for came over and had the house fixed to Letta’s name and the hospital couldn’t take that when it tried, so the bill just stayed in that drawer … for 25 or 30 years till she threw it out, til her mama and papa died, cause that’s how long she taken care of them!

And I mean she took care of them! That’s why I said they
was blessed! Neither one could move! You had to put them to the pot, put them to bed, get them up, set them up somewhere and feed em, all of it! She did it! I use to feel so sorry for them two people … just set and face and stare at each other all day long and sometimes tears comin down one face for a while and then the other, til Letta make them smile bout somethin. She kept them clean and the house clean. I would hear her sigh, them great big tired breaths sometimes but she didn’t never act mad cause her life had changed so. Future all gone. Present gonna stay forever, look like.

Oh, people came over at first, preachers and neighbors, to try to run her little house and business but she didn’t want none of that, said she wasn’t no child. She was proving that! Sho was! I helped her all I could.

Now, Letta had helped her mama work, cookin, sewing, and washing, so she just kept doin these things and she took to doin hair in her kitchen for a few friends and so she was able to make it. She sold some of their things what was valuable to them, watches, clothes they was never goin to use again, the piano, things like that. But not her mama’s wedding ring. She used to get so mad and frustrated and she would cry! Chile, there wouldn’t be nothin to eat! But she never sold that ring, it stayed right on her mother’s finger! Said, “my mama got to have something!” Well, they did have something! Her!!

I don’t have to tell nobody who ever worked for money for a livin, how hard it can get to keep goin on. Letta suffered plenty hardships and went without almost everything! Some days, she didn’t eat, but mama and daddy did! Many a night she didn’t sleep, just tossed, cried at first, but finally just tossed and thought … hard. No candles or electric lights at night … save that money! Don’t burn that little bit of firewood, go to bed and cover up. She could sew, but couldn’t sew for herself, so her clothes got pretty full of thin places and she was still growing. Some of her old
friends, the stupid ones, laughed at her when they see her in them clothes, glad to see her not lookin so cute anymore. She would get so disgusted, but I never did see her get mean and bitter. She just try to keep carry in on … and she did. Things got better over the years tho. Now I say that and the sayin goes so quick! To say “a year” takes less than a second I bet, and for Letta, a year, each year, took 365, 24-hour days. Long years.

Letta’s sewing got mighty fine and the best people used her, and I mean
USED
her. They paid her half of what it should have cost, but they knew she needed whatever she could get, so that’s what they paid her, whatever they could get away with. And her bakin stuff she was turnin out was truly beautiful to see and sho nuff good to taste! She had taken them tools her mama-dear had given her and turned them into blessings and a full way! She was a full provider long before she was 20 years old.

I had done got married bout that time and had two little sweet children I was raisin. They so sweet when they little! Me and my husband bought a little land and we builded a little house with our own hands. I loved my home and, come to think of it, Letta even came over there once to give us a hand on our house! She was somethin! Call me Ms. Admirer cause I sure admired her!

Some mens did too, but when they come over to her house and see those two skeleton-like bodies sittin there all day and her fixin for them and them just staring and sometimes droolin, well you can’t catch everything right away, you know? Well, they just lost heart or never had it in the first place, I guess. Mens! They want to “fool” around, say that’s what she need to relax her body! But she didn’t want none of that! She say she did
WANT
it but not that way, cause one more mouth to feed by herself, and she would kill everything in that house! Letta had to be more tired than even I thought cause Letta had a good heart, not mean at all and wouldn’t just ordinary think of killin! Anyway, they
never got married to her, so she was alone … that kinda alone … man and woman kind.

Well bout 25 years or so after the “accident,” Letta’s mama died quiet in her sleep and Letta didn’t say it was a relief or not. Just hugged and rocked her mama til they took her away, then she put her mama’s wedding ring on a chain and put it round her neck. I said, “Why don’t you wear it on your finger?” I didn’t add the rest of what I was thinkin bout she wasn’t never going to get one of her own, but that’s what I thought … she was bout 40 then, or more! She told me, “No! I want my own weddin ring on my finger!” Well, you can call me Ms. Hushmouth, cause I sure know when to do that!

My husband had been dead five years or so, then. Worked hisself to death, in the cold and damp, days and nights of our life. Making food, finding food, going for medicine at nights in the rain, walking babies when he needed his sleep and I was sick and couldn’t, so many things. He was a good man … my good man and my world. But one night my world slipped away from me and I was alone to raise my children. Course, I had my mama’s help, but I got to know a little more what Letta was going through, had gone through all her life. You could call me Ms. Tired and Sad, cause that’s all I remember bein … tired and sad.