The Darkest Child Page 34

  On the television screen, a message read, “Happy New Year,” and as I stepped out onto the Garrisons’ front porch, the first of the celebratory gunshots sounded in the night, and I saw Mushy staggering away from us and toward town with the Seagram’s bottle clutched in her fist.

  fifty - two

  We stood five minutes outside the Garrisons’ door, afraid to knock.Mr. Frank’s car was gone, and I wasn’t sure anybody was home, still I was afraid to knock. It was our first day back to school following the holiday break, and we had stopped to get Edna.

  The door finally opened, and Miss Pearl stared out at us. She was wearing a housedress fastened around her waist with a tied sash that hoisted her breasts up like water balloons.

  “Y’all ain’t gotta be scared to knock on this door,” she said. “Y’all ain’t done nothing to me. It was Rosie.” Her voice trembled. “What’s wrong wit’ Rosie, Tangy Mae?”

  “I don’t know, Miss Pearl,” I said.“We came to get Edna, to take her to school.”

  Miss Pearl stepped away from the door and allowed us to enter. “She’s in there in the kitchen, po’ thang. Cries herself to sleep. She don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t, either.”

  Laura rushed off to the kitchen while I stayed in the front room, unable to meet Miss Pearl’s gaze. “I brought Edna something to wear,” I said. “What are you gonna do, Miss Pearl? I mean about Edna?”

  She stood for a moment as though she had not heard me, then she sat down on the couch.“Honey, I don’t know. I been woke a solid week trying to think.” She chuckled dryly.“Frank done stayed woke, too. He scared to close his eyes. Think I’m gon’ do something to him.”

  “Are you?”

  “Nah. I’m gon’ make his life miserable for a few more days, and I ain’t never gon’ trust him no more, but I ain’t gon’ leave him or nothing. Ain’t nowhere to go. I figure Rosie’ll come to her senses and tell me Edna ain’t really Frank’s child. She’ll be lying, but maybe she’ll tell me that. I keep looking from Edna to Frank, Tangy Mae, and I swear I see Frank’s nose on that child.The po’ little thang sat here crying the other night, and them was Frank’s eyes spilling tears down her little face.” Miss Pearl broke down with tears of her own. “I oughta kick myself that I ain’t seen it before now.”

  She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands, then rose laboriously from the couch and went into her bedroom. When she returned, she was holding two scarves that she gave to me. “Tie they little heads up,” she said.“Don’t take ’em out looking like that. And when y’all get outta school, you bring Edna on back here. Frank’ll come out there to get her if you don’t, and I don’t want him and Rosie out there fighting.”

  “Okay,” I said, “but I think Mama will probably come up here and get her pretty soon.”

  Miss Pearl sighed noisily and the water balloons bounced, and I loved her so very deeply and did not know how to tell her.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said.

  As the months dragged by, neither Mama and Miss Pearl nor Mama and Mushy made any move toward reconciliation, so I, inadvertently, became my mother’s best friend. I was her opponent across a faded checkerboard with bottle caps as pieces.When and where she had gotten the board and learned to play checkers was a mystery to me.Maybe she had known how to play this game my entire life, and had only now decided to share it with me. Late into the night we would finish our game, then sit in the tattered armchairs to talk and laugh.We talked about loss, the loss of friendship, the loss of youth, but it frightened me that in the mornings I could not recall what we had laughed about.

  Our new and creative mother spun tales for Laura that left the girl begging to hear more, and she confided in me on a level that raised me from child to woman. So sudden was this positive change in our mother that it made us leery of her at a time when we should have been happy. Her bugs became infrequent visitors, but I was constantly on guard for the next blow that would knock me out cold or injure my little sister.

  Across the checkerboard one night, I asked Mama when she intended to bring Edna home.

  “Edna’s useless,” she said.“She’s just another mouth to feed, and we don’t need that right now.”

  We weren’t doing so bad, though. Harvey and Wallace continued to give Mama a portion of their pay, and Mama was teaching her girls to be clever. Each week she drove us into town and told us what to take and how to take it. Laura seemed to have found her niche in life. She stole without trepidation or remorse; I knew I would never be as skillful. I did, however, pilfer seeds from Munford’s Hardware Store to plant my mother a garden.

  One spring afternoon, I came home from school and cleared a patch of land between the clotheslines and the outhouse, tilled the soil with a splintered plank, then buried the squash and cucumber seeds. Patiently, I watered, weeded, and waited for vegetation to burst forth from the ground, but nothing would grow.

  “I told you wadn’t nothing gon’ grow out there,” Mama said to me one evening after I had finished watering the crusted, unyielding plot of earth. “I told you then, and I’ll tell you now, seeds was a stupid thing to steal.”

  She was right, of course, and I was reminded of Miss Veatrice, hands covered in mud and nothing to show for it. Maybe I should have stolen some boards and nails to build myself a bed.That would have made more sense.We had room for a bed now that everybody had left my mother’s house, but we couldn’t afford one. Funny the way things worked out. Now that I no longer had to share my blankets with Laura, she no longer wet her pallet. Now that Mama did not possess the children she had so desperately wanted to hold onto, she was a calmer, more compassionate mother. I sat on the step next to Laura, feeling serene, wishing all of my siblings could have known this mother, could have known this peace at home, but then my mother spoke.

  “Mushy was right, Tangy Mae,” she said in a wistful tone. “I’m getting old. Pearl won’t even speak to me, people act like they don’t want me around ’em, and Chadlow says he’d rather have you than me.You ’bout black as one of them tires on my car, but you younger than me, and I guess that’s what counts for Chadlow. He say he coming for you ’round eight o’clock tonight. Don’t you go getting no big head, though, ’cause you ain’t never gon’ be good as me.”

  With the bravado of an adult confidante, I said, “You’re right, Mama. I will never be as good as you, nor do I want to be.Why don’t you tell Chadlow that tonight when he comes for you, because I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Humph,” Mama snorted. She rose from her chair, and I thought for sure she was coming to knock me down the steps, but she smiled and winked one gray eye at me before opening the front door and disappearing inside the house.

  “You think Mama’ll tell me a story?” Laura asked.

  “Not right now, Laura,” I answered. “I don’t think you should ask her right now.”

  Laura stood up anyway and went inside. I remained on the step, waiting to hear a slap, a cry, or something nerve-shattering from within the house.What I heard was the music of my mother’s voice as she sang a lullaby to my sister.

  I smiled. A few short months ago, my environment had been predictable, but now my mother’s moods were indecipherable, and Laura, whom I had always secretly believed to be a bit dimwitted, was surpassing me in her intuition as to our mother’s disposition. Somehow Laura had known Mama to be approachable, or else she was simply starving for the love that was conveyed by fairytales and lullabies.

  For a while, I remained outside listening to my mother’s voice float out to me.Then, feeling guilty for wasting valuable daylight, I went inside to get my books; there was still at least two hours of study time before sunlight faded completely. Careful not to disturb the intimacy between my mother and sister, I quietly returned to the front porch.

  But each time I tried to read, my mind drifted. I thought of Jeff Stallings, who had left Pakersfield and forgotten all about me. I was convinced someone had told him about the farmhouse. I thoug
ht about my mother’s tirade that had prevented me from attending Pakersfield High School, and of how quickly she had dropped the subject of a pregnancy and an abortion as soon as it was too late into the school year for me to transfer.Mushy had been right about Martha Jean, though. She was expecting her second baby any day now, and even knowing that, I wondered if her husband loved me as much as I loved him. Sam briefly crossed my mind, and I imagined him someplace safe and happy.

  I thought of my friends, the students who had integrated Pakersfield High.Their transition had not been smooth.They were shunned by students and teachers and assaulted by adults outside the school building. Twice, black ink had been poured over Edith Dobson’s head. Philip Ames had been ganged up on and beaten severely in the boys’ lavatory. Each Sunday Reverend Nelson forced us to share their pain and humiliation.With tears in their eyes or anger in their voices, Edith and the others gave horrific accounts of their experiences, until anger—that had no place in God’s house— would burn in my head, smothering me for lack of an outlet.

  Lost in thought, I did not hear the front screen open. Footsteps across the porch registered and I glanced up at Mama and Laura, hand in hand, moving toward the steps. They strolled past me as though I was not there, and went down into the yard. A minute later, I saw them coming back with the tub and a bucket of water. Again they passed me without a word. I stared down at my book and forced myself to read.

  As dusk slowly crept across the white pages, obscuring the words from top to bottom, I closed the book and went inside. The tin tub stood in the front room, in front of the coal stove, and the water inside had the murky, uninviting appearance of tepid, settling grime. Mama and Laura sat side by side in the armchairs, and I assumed they were playing some sort of game, because Laura was wearing one of Mama’s dresses that billowed as she gleefully swung her legs back and forth. Her short hair, that was slowly growing back, had been heaped with pomade and molded to her scalp. Silver earrings weighed her earlobes down, but obviously did not cause her any discomfort because she flashed a smile, showing smeared red teeth between ruby red lips that had no place on a child’s face.

  “Chadlow is looking to have him somebody young tonight,” Mama said, “and that’s what I intend to give him.That man can cause me a whole mess of trouble if I don’t give him what he wants.”

  My mother had gone through this elaborate farce to force me to obey her. It was an excellent ploy, and I had to admire her ingenuity.

  I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the tepid water of the tin tub.

  fifty - three

  Martha Jean gave birth to another girl, Valerie.Three weeks later, I was promoted to the twelfth grade. I wasn’t particularly thrilled by either event. Mama had the power to snatch me out of school whenever she got ready, and as my old friend, Mattie, had once said, “Girls are useless, so why get an education?” Mama reiterated Mattie’s sentiment by saying, “My girls ain’t nothing. If it wadn’t for my boys bringing us money, we’d be in bad shape. Not one of my girls ever bring one dime to this house.” It would have been foolish for me to protest. Bored with staying home, Mama began to drive around Pakersfield stirring up devilment, and I ceased to be her best friend. I became someone who needed to get off my lazy behind and get a job.

  Mama connected with an unlikely ally—Brenda Mackey. Together, they harassed Mushy and Richard, and brought confusion to the little house on Echo Road where the adulterous couple had moved in together. People understood Brenda’s motives, but they could not understand Mama’s.They reproached her for her behavior toward Mushy, yet the same people listened to her malicious accusations as she branded Tarabelle a degenerate who lusted after women and children. Not once, that I’m aware of, did Tarabelle try to defend herself. She went to work at the Munfords’, came home to Miss Shirley’s house, and allowed the gossip to run its course.

  Mama had a friend, people were paying attention to her, and apparently she was once again looking young to Chadlow. Sometimes she would drive her car to the farmhouse to meet him, sometimes he would pick her up in his car, sometimes she would send me with him.

  One night late in August when I had been designated to go with Chadlow, he drove me out to the farmhouse and barely glanced at Miss Frances when we entered her kitchen. He was sullen and distant—characteristics I had never witnessed in him before. In an upstairs room, with the door closed, he pressed my head against his chest, and must have felt my recoil because he stepped back and spun me around so that I was facing the bed.To hasten the inevitable, I disrobed and took my place between dingy, white sheets where I transformed timidity and humiliation into emotional numbness—my fortification.

  Chadlow momentarily stood in the spot where I had left him. His eyes scanned the room and came to settle on the nightstand where a lamp stood on a lacy, oblong doily. But when he moved, it was not toward the nightstand or the bed, but to the chair where I had placed my clothes. He rummaged through my possessions and lifted a single white sock from the pile, then came to stand over the bed. Fully dressed, Chadlow straddled my chest and pinned my arms to the mattress with his knees, stuffed my sock in my mouth, snatched up the doily from the nightstand, and tied it over my lips.

  Panic gripped me. I was used to doing whatever the men commanded of me, but this was different.The faraway look in Chadlow’s eyes was terrifying. It was as though he no longer recognized me. I struggled against him, but his weight on my chest restricted my movements and rapidly exhausted me. I gagged as I tried to breathe around the sock in my mouth, then my nostrils took over.

  Chadlow eased off of my chest, then I felt rough hands on my body as he flipped me over.With my nose pressed against the mattress and my mouth stuffed, suffocation seemed imminent. I desperately tried to shift my body, slowly realizing that my arms, caught in the grip of a human vise, were extended awkwardly behind my back. My feet, the only mobile part of my body, kicked out against the mattress, then cold metal clicked in place around my wrists.

  “Rozelle’s been telling me all about you, ”Chadlow said.He was winded from his struggle with me, and that gave me a smidgen of satisfaction.“Rozelle says you’ve been giving her a rough time, and that you’re lazy, you won’t help her out at the house.You’ve been disrespectful, backtalking your own mother. Now, she tells me you think you’re better than everybody else, think you’re better than me.Are you?”

  With the sock shoved halfway down my throat, I couldn’t answer him, but I managed to shake my head.

  “You ought to be thrilled that I pay you any attention at all,” he went on, “but Rozelle tells me that you don’t want me to touch you. Is that right?” He paused, as though waiting for me to answer, then said, “I told your mother I would help her straighten you out. And I will, by God, I will.”

  It was pure rawhide that cut into my backside, and Chadlow brandished the weapon with expertise. Someone downstairs must have heard the whirr, hiss, crack of the strap as it struck my defenseless body, but if they heard, no one came to investigate. I closed my eyes, twitched and moaned with each excruciating blow, dug my toes into the mattress, and tried to fade away.An inferno roared through my arms, legs, buttocks and back.

  After what seemed an eternity, Chadlow ended the beating. He had straightened me out, for sure, to the point where—if I survived this—I would say one last thing to my mother concerning Chadlow, then I would never mention his name to her again.

  “I’m gonna let you up now, ”Chadlow said, “but I don’t want to hear one sound from you.You understand?”

  I bobbed my head and Chadlow removed the handcuffs.When I tried to move my arms, a soft moan came through my gag. I realized I was crying, and this was clogging my nostrils. Getting the sock out of my mouth was imperative. All the times when, in my naïveté, I had thought death a solution, now fell by the wayside. I wanted the pain to end, but I did not want to die.

  “Not one sound from you,” Chadlow warned, then ripped the sock from my mouth.

  I was so grateful—so grate
ful for breath—that I would have kissed his pale, rough hands. Instead, I sucked in a mouthful of air and plunged into darkness.

  Miss Frances was sitting in a chair at the bedside when I opened my eyes. She was washing my back with water from a basin that stood on the nightstand. She spoke to Chadlow as she worked.“It’s a shame you beat this child like this. For what?” she asked.“What she do? These sheets ain’t never gon’ be no more good. Blood don’t wash out that easy. I’m gon’ have to throw ’em away.”

  “I’ll pay for the sheets,” Chadlow said.

  “And this shirt you want me to put on her?”

  “I’ll pay for that, too.”

  “You paying for a awful lot tonight. I hope it was worth it, ”Miss Frances said. “You know Bo don’t like this kinda carrying on out here, Mr. Chadlow.”

  “You watch your mouth when you talk to me, Frances,” Chadlow said. “What’s done is done. There’s nothing you, Bo, or anybody else can do about it now.”

  Miss Frances fell silent and continued to sponge my back.When she realized I was awake, she asked, in a voice filled with sympathy, “You awright, child? Can you sit up?”

  I ignored my pain and pulled myself into a sitting position. Miss Frances wiped my face and bandaged my back with scraps from an old, discolored sheet, then she helped me to get my clothes on. Lastly, she maneuvered my arms into the sleeves of a man’s well-worn, brown shirt before leaving me alone in the room with Chadlow.

  “I need to see you walk,” Chadlow said.

  Gritting my teeth, I walked the length of the room without limping or grimacing, because I knew that this was my passport out.

  Miss Frances had reclaimed her post at the kitchen table by the time we descended the stairs. I could not remember having ever been to the farmhouse when she was not at the table. It seemed to be the only place she was comfortable. Her husband, Bo, stayed in the parlor where drinking and gambling took place, and I seldom saw him.