Life Is Short But Wide (18 page)

Leroy looked at Rose, hard, for a few moments. Then he said, softly, “Ya know, once ya had you a baby … ya forgot all about me.”

Rose’s voice was weaker from her exertion. “I didn’t forget about you; Myine added to us; all three of us were one together. I still sleep with you every night you come home.” Her eyes widened. “Where are you when you don’t come home, Leroy? Juke joints don’t stay open all night. Where do you go? Who are you with?”

“Rose, I stay out cause I don’t blive ya miss me. An we jes be sittin round talkin bout shit … nothin. Okay, I’m gonna stay home tonight.” He turned to leave the room, then said, “Don’t forget ya said ya’ed let my cousin work here, part-time, for us … you. We got money in the bank. I’m gonna be home
more, watchin to see if she works good. That way I c’n get to see bout my daughter, too.”

And so it came to pass that Tonya came to cook, and care for Rose every day. Leroy even paid her. Said, “Don’t ya do nothin to my daughter. Nothin! Don’t ya make no mistakes.”

Tonya began to hate Myine then.

(She didn’t want that man to love his own daughter!)

Tonya was thrilled to be in that house. She looked around every room with delight. Hardly able to keep from shouting the words out loud, “This gonna be mine! Mine! One day soon now.” Her own daughters stayed at her old shack; she left them alone many nights.

She often stayed with Leroy, sleeping downstairs behind the kitchen on the porch. Far enough from Myine’s and Rose’s rooms not to be heard. They made love stealthily. And the loving was good! It got better, because it was stolen, and she thought they were making a fool of Rose.

By this time Rose had much poison in her system; Tonya was doing it slowly. They did not want the doctor to be suspicious. Leroy had called the doctor, at last, because too many people knew Rose was sick.

Remember, in those times small police departments did not think of poison. They were used to guns, knives, fights, and beatings. Usually no one suspected poison among Blacks; and there were so many strange diseases everywhere. With all the drugs Leroy brought from the hospital, Rose was almost already dead as she slept.

She heard nothing, not even the loud moans that Tonya made, on purpose, on the nights she slept there with Leroy. Leroy tried to keep his hand over her mouth, but sometimes he
lost his concentration on his hand, replaced by his concentration on the business in his hand.

In the next few weeks Rose tried to eat the nice-looking lunches Tonya prepared: chicken and dumplings; meat loaf; lima beans with pork neck-bones. Things not really good for the ailing; things easily mixed with poison. As little as Rose was able to eat, Tonya spoon-fed her; she ingested more than enough of the poison.

Rose grew weaker and weaker. She often vomited up her meals, slimy glucose, green and yellow, streaked with blood. She cried often, from bewilderment, and frustration, and the lack of her husband and love. Finally Tonya had to move to the house full-time, stay every night, to take care of her.

Bertha had tried again, and again, to see Rose. She cringed, and ached inside her heart when Tonya moved in her friend Rose’s house. She knew what was going on in there. Juliet had given her mother a dirty, accusing look when Tonya had moved in, and Bertha did not do anything to stop it from happening.

Bertha’s second mistake was to try to hide some truths from Myine that would be very important to Myine’s life.

Being older, Juliet was able to take care of herself much better. Bertha now had a steady job. After keeping Joseph supplied with his medicine each month, she was able, with credit, to buy a good wheelchair for Juliet.

That wheelchair made the poor little family very happy. Especially Juliet! Juliet was in her early thirties, and could, at last, go outside on her own whenever she wanted. She loved to sit in the chair, in the wind, and listen to the sounds of trees, birds, and just life. Just life. Cloud visited and began to dream deeper dreams with her.

Juliet was almost independent. And, too, Cloud visited regularly, almost every day. Myine was usually there, also, because Tonya would run her out of the house. “Stop all that cryin and fussin round yur Mama! Ya gonna worry her to death! Get on out. Go play or somethin! Ya got all this big ole yard! Get!”

Myine, a young child, was confused, bewildered. She had never known such attitude and treatment in all her days on earth. “Who is this woman who can do anything she wants to do in this house?” Myine began to do something she had never done before: talk back to Tonya. She had the feeling Tonya would not hit her.

Rose tried to control some things. But her strength was gone; she sometimes blacked out, and one day turned into another day without her understanding how or when. She was helpless; her end was very near. She began to understand that, when she was too weak to do anything about it. Leroy seldom came into her room. It was now her room. Alone.

Juliet was nearly going crazy; she was frustrated and angry. “I can’t knock that woman down, nor go up them stairs either. The doctor never comes so I can’t tell him, and I don’t even know his name to look him up. Oh God, Oh, God!”

She wished for Herman to come by, but he was busy with problems that took up his whole mind, keeping him away. Juliet found out he had recently moved, and had been married. But she had no way to find him. He didn’t come to her church anymore, and she seldom went to the church herself.

She wanted to tell Rose, “Don’t eat what that woman gives you no more!”

Juliet asked her mother to try to find Herman, and Bertha tried, to no avail. Joseph was sick also. Well, he was old. He had
worked very hard all his life, eating poor food, and getting little rest. He was dying, also. Bertha counted on Juliet to take care the house and Joseph. Bertha had to go to work because there was nothing or no one else to count on. “What will I do when my man is gone, God, and my friend is gone, too?”

Then, one evening, Myine came downstairs bringing the tray with two soup bowls she and her mother had used. She had fed her mother, dripping most of the soup onto Rose’s nightgown. She came into the kitchen as Tonya was cooking steaks for Leroy and herself. Leroy had his hand possessively on Tonya’s behind.

Her mind was shocked; this was her father! Then it became clear in Myine’s mind, but she couldn’t have explained how or what was clear. She just knew! She watched as her father leaned over to kiss a smiling Tonya, who was pressing her hip into Leroy’s crotch.

Myine set the tray on the table, hard. Her father turned at the sound, as he let Tonya’s behind go. “Baby! Ya want some’a this steak?” Myine broke into tears, shook her head “no,” and ran from the kitchen.

He started after her, but Tonya stopped him, saying, “I been thinkin, we betta get her to go stay some’eres else for a lil bit. Rose bout to die, and I don’t need to go through all what’s goin to be goin on in this house!”

Leroy looked alarmed. “This is my chile. Where ya gonna send her off to?”

Tonya replied, “A very nice place I know. Been thinkin on it for a long time now. She’ll be jes fine, Leroy. Let me,” she placed her hip back on his crotch, “jes let me handle yo’r sweet baby, Baby. I ain’t gon let no chile get hurt no where round me!”
She looked down at his crotch as she said, “Ya jes handle this juicy thing! And this juicy steak I done cooked for ya. Let me worry bout the baby. I done learnt to love her jes like ya do.”

Soon thereafter, one night lying in bed, Tonya kept filling Leroy’s glass with liquor, pretending to drink right along with him. He was drunk and sleeping when she jumped out of bed, quietly, of course. She hurriedly dressed Myine, pushing and dragging her to the old raggedy car Leroy still had. She drove her about fifty miles away to a little cafe named Mom’s Cafe. The child was half asleep. “She ain’t never gonna know where she at, do she take a mind to find her way home.”

Inside the cafe two older white people, the Whipets, were a little surprised when Tonya came in carrying a child. Pa Whipet said, “Well, ya done finally made it. We bout done gave ya up!”

Tonya looked at Ma Whipet, asking, “Where her bed?”

“Over hind the kitchen. G’mon, I’ll show ya!” Mz. Whipet said. “My, she a big little girl.” Tonya motioned with her finger on her lips. “Shhhhh. She sleep.”

When Myine was placed in the makeshift bed, they returned to the dining room. Mr. Whipit gave Tonya one hundred dollars for Myine. “We sure been needin help! Ma is gettin old, and I ain’t none too well.”

Tonya placed the money in her purse, and said, “Don pay no tention to nothin she say; she tell lies to get some tention. She a good worker. Good-bye, ya’ll.” It was 1947, and Myine was about eight years old.

Tonya was gone back to the house. In the morning, Leroy woke up, mind hazy, and late, rushing to work. He looked through the door, checking on Rose, but didn’t notice Myine was gone.

Juliet and Bertha always looked for Myine to stop for breakfast on her way to school. When they missed her, they couldn’t get any answers except from Tonya. She said, over her shoulder, “That baby don’t need to be over here at yo house with her mama dying.”

Rose did die soon after that. She kept asking for her child; Tonya kept saying, “She be here soon. Now ya jes rest.”

When Rose died she was thinking of her husband, and her child. She raised up a little from the bed, holding her arms out. She cried out, “Leroy? Myine? Myine.” Rose’s head fell back onto the pillow, she exhaled a long breath, and then she was gone.

The funeral was small; it wasn’t held at the church. They held it quickly, in the parlor of the house: Leroy, Bertha, Juliet, Joseph, Cloud, and a few others who just happened to find out Rose had died.

After Rose’s death, the thrill of making love dulled for Leroy. It wasn’t as good, or desirable. The heavy, horrible truth of what Tonya had done frightened him. Sometimes the sight of Tonya, even her big behind, made Leroy frown with annoyance. He would think, “Ya know, God? This wasn’t none of my idea to hurt Rose. I miss Rose; she was clean, and sweet. Her lovin was never bad. She was clean all over. Don’t put this on me, Lord.”

Tonya noticed Leroy had slacked off making love, no matter how she flashed her behind, or rubbed up against him. She rolled her eyes, thinking, “This negra better wake up. He ain gonna get no other woman! Not now! This house is … ours!”

In every moment, every day, there was something unexpected for Bertha; the death, the funeral, the disappearance of Myine. Everything always seemed so sudden. “Just life and all
these things,” sighed Bertha through her tears, “goin too fast for me.”

But not for Juliet. She cast many dark looks at her mother. “I told you, you should have told Rose. Told somebody, even Myine, what was going on in that house. Now look. Our best friends. The one is dead, the other is gone. And we don’t know nothing!”

Life and death seemed to keep Bertha and Juliet too busy to try to find out more about anything. Juliet, in her new wheelchair, would roll herself over to the house to throw rocks at the doors, front and back, until Tonya answered.

“What ya want?”

“Where is Myine?”

“Her daddy sent her off so she don’t have to go through all the pain of her mama’s dyin.”

“Where did he send her?”

“Well, now, missy Juliet, I think ya is gettin in somebody else bizness! What ya need to be thinkin bout is the rent ya gonna have to pay, now Rose is gone!” Then Tonya slammed the door shut. That happened several times. Then Tonya stopped answering the door.

Bertha did not want any problems. She could not afford to pay any rent. Joseph was sick unto death, and hadn’t been able to keep up any work. Bertha was working a domestic job that kept them all going. They worked together to keep the front yard weeded and clean. Cloud mowed the small front lawn.

In her grief, Juliet called Rose “Aunt” to feel closer to her. She frowned, saying, “But Aunt Rose would not have charged us, Mama. We can still do things round here. We watch this place, and keep it pretty clean.”

Joseph was quietly crying at the circumstances he was leaving his family in. His heart stopped pumping the feeble blood, and he died with the tears rolling down his face. They held a memorial in the little shack they called home. The house Joseph had built. It was a sad, sad, terrible day. They didn’t know what was going to happen to them. A disabled young woman, and a tired, ill, old woman. The family.

But they had Cloud. Cloud loved Juliet, and thought a great deal of Bertha. He still coughed his low constant cough, even with the syrups and herbs they prepared for him. He wanted to marry Juliet, but Bertha told Juliet, “No. Just no.” But, he brought them money he earned at whatever he could find to do. He hunted and brought food. But, it wasn’t much.

Bertha kept working, Juliet kept weaving baskets, Cloud sold the baskets. Life went on, even as dreary as it was. Rose’s death and Myine’s absence stayed on Juliet’s mind. Stayed on all their minds, but Juliet’s in particular.

As expected, Tonya came over to their little house ready to argue about the rent. “Ya jes gonna have to come up with some money! Things is tough, and I … we all need it.”

Bertha said, “We don’t have any money, Tonya. My husban jes died. It took all our money to bury him.”

“Well ya jes gonna have to get some, or move on way from here and let somebody else have it that can pay.”

Juliet spoke up in a regular tone. “Aunt Rose would not charge us for this house. My daddy built this house. We still take care of this land, and watch it for her.”

“Then don’t do it no mo! She ain’t here no mo. Cause I will call the sher’ff and ya c’n get put out! I didn’t want to make no trouble for nobody, but we done done all we can do!”

As Juliet patted her sniffling mother’s back, she turned her face to Tonya. She said, almost gently, with a faint, but distinct threat in her voice, “Yes, you can call the sheriff. We would love to go to court about everything. So many strange things been happening round here … since you came, that I would really want to find out what the sheriff would think about them. Healthy people dying; and young, strong children disappearing. Yes, the sheriff would probably be interested his own self.”