Now Mo never mentioned the former residences for 2728 Prospect Street, unless she was spitting mad, and even then it wasn’t enough information to tell the tale. It was more “that no count” or “that weasel” or “that burnt Chicken shit.”
On a couple of occasions, I worked up the nerve and asked, “Who?”
“Your Mama!”she’d snap. Or “Your people.” But it was the slow glare from her fiery red glaze that said tread carefully. I could feel the heat coming off her.
Mo must have been four or five times as big as me. I was underdeveloped and thin as a wet cat. Mo had one big old mean streak, so I hid out the shade of her good side; there, times were sweeter, some blues singer was hollering out tunes, and her good old cooking was piled high on my plate.
I was born at 2728 Prospect Street. We lived at the top of the “T” where Prospect crossed the end of North Dukeland Street. Our house was one in the tiny row of houses that were all pushed together real tight. The fact that my real mother was as low as burnt chicken shit was all I knew of my story until Pee Wee, who lived in the last house of North Dukeland, which was right across the street, told me what his mother and two other nosey hens where saying around his kitchen table.
So, when I was thirteen, it was Pee Wee who told me my own Daddy’s name. Pee Wee lived across the street with a boatload of brothers and sisters. You could depend on Pee Wee for wearing the same big old hand-me-down clothes and keeping his skin ashy. You could probably starch: “I NEED DIXIE PEACH” on both of his legs.
Early one sunny Saturday morning, I was the only kid outside sitting on my stoop, wearing my new blue jumper with a matching blouse from the second-hand store, when Pee Wee came out of his house. I heard his screen door creak, real loud like they couldn’t afford a penny’s worth of oil for the hinges. He waved and made a straight line for me. I frowned and looked at him like he wanted to steal something. As far as I was concerned, Pee Wee was a cockroach simply because he was a lackey. I hated lackeys more than anything. Well not more than anything. But it was on the top of my list. The second the other boys came outside he would turn on me like a roach in the light.
“I know your daddy’s name. It is Buddy, Buddy Taylor,” he taunted.
I gestured, all cool, for Pee Wee to come and sit by me on the stoop, then went in the house and came out with a handful of roasted peanuts in the shell. I gave one to him and ate one myself, all slow like to settle Pee Wee down to tattle. I wanted him to spill his gusts but fast.
The story around that kitchen table was that Mo had given up her lovely little family for me, that is, if you ask those three hens. The biggest hen was Mrs. Henrietta, who lived on Prospect but closer to Popular Grove. She was good company, except when it was your business she was telling, and she didn’t just tell it she made up parts for dramatic effects. Mrs. Henrietta added a little something and said a little more to Mrs. Annie who, if you had a good enough tale to spin, in the morning, she would make you a big hot breakfast. Mrs. Henrietta went back home full of a giant plate of hoe cakes with molasses and hard fried fat back. Next, Mrs. Annie paid a visit to her neighbor round on North Dukeland. It was Mrs. Annie who told the story to Mrs. Jean, skinny old Pee Wee’s mother.
Now Pee Wee and them were so poor that all Mrs. Jean could offer was a cup of black coffee. Mrs. Annie was so excited to have something shitty to say about Mo that no food was necessary. The second hen told the third hen everything and then some. It was Pee Wee who told it all to me.
“Mrs. Annie told my mama that your daddy was a real mulatto. That means with white men’s skin.”
“No, it means his daddy was white,” I corrected him. We had never seen any white women with little Negro children so I felt this must be the case.
“No. No. No. Mrs. Annie said that his daddy was white and he just damn near looked white on the outside.”
I decided not to fight with him. I didn’t have enough peanuts to keep him talking for too long.
“Would you like another peanut? And what were you saying about my daddy?”
“Yeesum,” he grabbed, shelled the peanut, popped it in his mouth, and continued. “He was a real smart boy. Everyone thought he would be a medical doctor or something real important here in Baltimore. But he was a nasty little fellow who liked to do it to girls. Mrs. Annie said that he would stick his thing down the sewer if he could get the steel plate off. So he made you with your mother…I think by humping and sweating doing the low-down dirty probably one hot August night.” He looked over at me. “Anyway, they said then he left for New York City. Yep! That is what Mrs. Annie told my mama.”
He beamed with pride.
My only goal was to keep him talking and not show him that this awful shit was news to me. For a little while, Pee Wee got off the track and started talking about his mama—she was pregnant again.
“My mama said she wants another girl baby to grow up and help her round the house. She said boys ain’t shit. Just like that. Right while I was in the same room. Boys ain’t shit.”
After a couple of these personal insights, I’d said outright, “What else did Mrs. Annie say to your mama?”
“There was more. Well, she told her that your real Mama, Lottie Mae Johnson, loved herself some…Yellow fever?”
I could tell Pee Wee didn’t how what this meant. If he had, he would have saved it to use as a weapon against me when his best pal, Head Lice— “Lice” for short—came outside.
“Anyways,” he continued, “things were good. Mr. Raymond your grandpa and Mrs. Maureen, your grandma, did real good by Lottie Mae. Right after Buddy took off cross country.”
I wanted to say get a map. New York is up North. I had to remind myself that, yes I knew things that other people didn’t, but this wasn’t the time to prove it as Lice would be outside soon and I wanted Pee Wee back on this own stoop by then. I came down another step and was now sitting on the first step right next to Pee Wee. I pulled my dress over my knees like a little tablecloth so no one could see my undergarments.
“Boy, I know who everyone is, you don’t have to say the introductions. I know my family Maureen, Tig, and Lottie Mae.” I couldn’t wrap my lips or tongue around saying Buddy at all.
He grabbed the remaining nuts from my hand and whispered. “Once you com, everything changed. Lottie Mae had to be tied down to keep from running off to find old Buddy boy. Mr. Raymond started whipping old Lottie Mae for leaving the baby alone to ‘fend for herself—them Mrs. Annie’s direct words. Old Buddy boy must have loved your mama, cause he sent her train fare, by his mother. The next thing Mrs. Maureen knows was that she left you upstairs in the bed while she hopped on the first train that was headed to New York City.
“My mama said that your mama would hop on to any old thing. Anyway, Mrs. Annie said that you fell off that bed and bumped your head on the floor. She said you must have cried yourself to sleep, cause when Mrs. Maureen got home from work, there was her little angel on the floor with a knot on your forehead the size of a pecan. No, maybe it was a walnut. Which one is bigger?”
“Boy, you had better git to the end of this soon.” I said, wanting to keep from tearing up.
“Sure Sista. Now where was I? It would be easier for me to keep track if you stopped interrupting. Right…Old Lottie Mae was gone. And Mrs. Maureen ain’t been right since. Now here comes the kick in the head. My mother added this part. Is you ready for it?” he said pretending to be a doctor.
“Go on boy.” I hoped I sounded nice, but from the look on Pee Wee’s face, I missed my mark.
“See, Mr. Raymond tells Mrs. Maureen to pick if she wants the baby or her husband. Then my mother gits up, with her coffee, and sits right next to Mrs. Annie and they starts to whisper. I got closer too, so I could still hear them. Well, Mrs. Annie said after a long tug of her coffee, Old Maureen, your grandmother, didn’t side nothing for so long. That Tig sides for ha and he leaves, just like that. Almost a year to the date or the day, I forget which one, Mrs. Annie said. No. It was the day. Yes, it was a year to the day.”
I didn’t interrupt or anything, but I realized that Pee Wee was a different kind of boy. He saw and heard everything except how he sounded telling a story.
“A year to the day that Lottie Mae done gone. The house is all quiet after that, Mrs. Maureen gits more work cleaning and cooking, and totes you along to boot.” Pee Wee smiled wide and he looked excited. “Now here is the part, Sista, where they both fell out with their sides splitting over laughing it up. My Mama said that Maureen had your lil yellow boney butt working in somebody’s kitchen before you was four. Making biscuits, shelling peas and what not.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks, I couldn’t stop them. I had never done a day’s work in my life—so Pee Wee or his Mama was lying.
“I was working in a kitchen? You a lying jackal Pee Wee and so is your nasty dirty butt mama!” Standing now and shaking, I ran up the stairs and into the house slamming the door behind me. The shaking continued. The feeling was unbearable and I had to do something about it. Pee Wee was a weasel. No, a weasel snake who could eat old burnt chicken shit. I should have punched him in the nose.
I stomped back outside and found him about to go on his porch. “Pee Wee git over here, right now!”
He came back across the street with his head down.
“I‘m mighty sorry, I didn’t mean no harm. Honest.” He looked up from the bottom step.
“Well you had better not tell any of those stories anymore or I’ll beat you up. Hear? My grandmother said they are all lies,” I said, more hurt than honest. They just had to be lies.
“I only told you cause it was about you and you kept on asking more questions. Besides I wanted to keep you company for everyone came outside. Please don’t tell my mama, Sista. Please, I can’t help that I remember everything in my mind. If she tells my daddy, all of us kids will get whipped come Friday. Anybody steps out of line my daddy will whip us all come Friday.”
Pee Wee looked like he was about to sit back down on my steps and cry, when his buddy Lice appeared from his door wearing new overalls and new tennis shoes. I balled up my fist and waved it low so only Pee Wee could see it.
“I won’t tell if you don’t tell, ” he said quickly, You sure is pretty. Oh, and Sista, it was yellowtail not yellow fever. Your mama like her some yellowtail.”
He darted over to meet Lice before he could catch wind of us talking. “Hey Lice, you got a penny? You got new tennis shoes? What you goin’ do with your old tennis shoes?”
Pee Wee flipped a strange little smile my way.
***
That evening, I worked up the nerve to talk to Mo about the stories that were whispered in the kitchens of our neighbors. She actually started to talk with me.
“Sista why is you so God damn gloomy?” She teased.
I let it rip. “The kids on the block said mean things about my mama and my daddy.” I was bawling and my bottom lip swelled up and trembled.
“What kind of things?”
I could feel something stirring in her too.
“Well first, Mrs. Henrietta told Mrs—” I started and before I could filter any part of it, the entire rumor all spilled out. Pee Wee’s full version. I remembered everything too, and looking in Mo’s eyes I knew I was hers even more than the legs that she stood on. I was at home and the red glare didn’t appear at any point in the story.
She slid closer to me on the sofa, which took up most of the little room, and started to sing in my ear. “Ain’t no use tryin to tell on me I know something on you.”
I cried in her large stale talcum-scented bosoms, while wiping my eyes on her well-worn, homemade dress. The smell of garlic and basil from the Billings’ kitchen and a mix of lard and fried chicken fat from our kitchen was caught in the fabric of her dress. She sang and I cried. I cried and I cried. I didn’t remember missing my mama or my daddy ever. I was crying for Mo. She had given up her family for me and all she got out of the deal was working three jobs and taking in washing to make ends meet. I didn’t feel like it was a fair exchange.
When I could finally get up the words, I said, “Mama, I am so sorry that Lottie Mae and Mr. Raymond left you on account of me.” I looked up and Mo seemed more annoyed than anything else. “I’m your family now and I can find them for you. Promise. Don’t worry, I can find both of them for you Mama.”
I really didn’t want to, but if it would have made Mo happy, I’d do it.
I must have said too much, cause Mo’s song stopped. The hairs stood up on my arms, I could feel the red-hot glare rising in her.
“I know where they is. Tig is here in Baltimore with a pack of mangy wild dogs, done lost his mind, and no account Lottie Mae is in New York working as a maid in one of those downtown hotels. Child, what make you think that I want to see a no account and a coward? I’d sooner spit in their eye.”
She unbraided our bodies, got up, restarted “Memphis Minnie” on the record player, then sat back down real close and looked right in my eyes. Before the record queued up, she said, in an almost syrupy sweet voice, “I hate them both, Tig and Lottie. We had something right here and they destroyed it with foolishness. If I saw Lottie Mae in the street I’d hurt that girl. And I already done even worst to Tig. I hate them Sista.”
“Then I hate them too.” There was the briefest of time when I wanted to know what Lottie Mae looked like, but no need now. She was nothing to me; just a woman my real mama hated.
Mo smiled and sang, “Aint no use tryin to tell on me I know something on you,” as she got up and danced a little. Then she put on her sweater and left the house.
To my surprise, somehow order had been restored. I opened a brand new box of Arco Starch and sucked on a big piece. It tasted like a little salt mixed with a lot of blackboard chalk.
But under my newly found hatred, I wished that they were here with her. Mo had destroyed any signs that they ever lived in our little house. Not a bronze-covered baby shoe or a special dish or a photograph. Nothing, anywhere. Wait, there was one sign—Mo wore a gold wedding band, and then there was me. I was what was left of her marriage and her only child.
I flipped the record over and opened the curtains to let some sun into the living room. “Memphis Minnie” whaled as I watched Pee Wee and Lice sitting on Lice’s steps eating meat sandwiches.
Two shadows flew by our front porch window and the door swung open.
Mo and Mrs. Henrietta were now standing in the living room doorway. Mo pushed Mrs. Henrietta in the middle of her back, an attempt to get her into the house quicker. Mrs. Henrietta fell forward. She looked like she was about to slide into home base, and regained her footing, avoiding falling on her face.
The extra-long raisin-colored woman, whose voice was higher than she was, appeared to be shaking. Usually, her broken words reminded me of someone from the deep deep backcountry woods. And at other times, when she was excited and spoke quickly, she sounded real crazy, like she was hollering calls to imaginary pigs. “Did ya hear, did ya hear? Did ya hear?” It always made me laugh to picture Mrs. Henrietta in overalls with mix-matched patches on the knees and old tennis shoes, wrestling a wild hog.
“Hello precious,” Mrs. Henrietta began, “I’s so sorry folks been telling outright lies about you and your people. Let me set the record straight. You ain’t ever worked in nobody’s kitchen. Your grandma is always telling me that you gone be the next Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday. She says you sho can sing. And as for your other mama, well that is just nobody’s business. Put that out your mind, put it behind you.”
She looked at Mo.
I could tell that Mo didn’t like the way the apology was going, so she opened the front door and said, “Git out.”
Mrs. Henrietta left without saying her usual long-ass goodbye to us. She would usually start by saying, “Did ya hear? Did ya hear?” And end the conversation with, “Just between you, me, and da good Lord. Just between you, me, and da good Lord. I’ll see you tomorrow if the creek don’t rise. Have mercy and praise the Lord.”
Mo took off her sweater and placed it on the back of my dining room chair.
She had fried chicken for dinner and I boiled corn on the cob.
Mo had two kinds of fried chicken. She would cut the chicken into eight pieces and cover it in Red-Hot hot sauce, then flour it and fry it. This was good eating, cause the heat burned off most of the pepper’s fire. The hot sauce didn’t ready get to you unless you bit into a piece where the flour and hot sauce made a paste-like in the fold of a chicken wing.
The other kind of fried chicken was in vinegar. Mo would clean the chicken, chop it into about twenty small pieces—necks livers, gizzards, and even the heart. She soaked it in the ice box for almost two days in vinegar—apple cider when she had it, white vinegar when she didn’t. I never managed to get down more than one small piece of this smelly shit. Usually a leg, just the drumstick part. It was amazing how much this mess tasted like pigs’ feet. I could eat pigs’ feet, pickled, barbeque or boiled on the stove, but not pig feet tasting chicken.
Anyway, I was in luck; she had cut the chicken into eight pieces.
I finally knew my own story and it didn’t matter one bit. I made some sweet tea and turned the record player up full blast. That night, we laughed at everything and nothing at all. During dinner, I got up and stood next to the sofa, pretending to be Mrs. Henrietta, leaning over talking to me.
“Listen child,” I said, all loud and country, “Did ya see it? Did ya see it? My mouth done got my butt into a mighty fix. Did ya hear, have mercy? Can I get a ‘praise Him’ somebody?” I said this fanning in what might be a sweaty hot church.
Mo could see me from her chair without getting up.
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain Sista,” she said trying to control her belly laughs. “Just cause Mrs. Henrietta is a heathen, it ain’t the Father’s fault.”
Yes, Mo was like that, close to God. But not close to his people and that worked for us.
Mo’s laughter shook the house and tears rolled down my mama’s face as she tried to finish her chicken dinner.
Later that night I realized for the first time that I was sleeping in old no account, Lottie Mae’s bed. Before I went to sleep, I created a list of people I hated in the back of my composition book: Buddy Taylor, my daddy who I don’t think I had ever seen. Lottie Mae Johnson, my natural mother, for leaving me with a knot on my head and never looking back. Raymond Johnson for treating Mo bad. And Mrs. Henrietta, Mrs. Annie, and Mrs. Jean, Pee Wee’s nasty butt mother.
If any of them ever crossed my path, well I’d work that part out in the morning.
************
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