The beatings had become routine, but the one she received last night hurt the most. She’d give anything for the beatings to stop. If she tattled, she’d be responsible for shuttering the business, and her pittance of pay would vanish. Perhaps she’d go elsewhere for business, a place where there would be no beatings, or fewer of them.
As she neared the general store, each step was heavier than the next, but not because of the throbbing pain in her ribs and the pain of battered eyes. She wasn’t much of a tattler, but perhaps it was time for her tormentor to feel her pain. Her nerves were as tight as the fists that had pelted her body. But that was good because that way she knew they were in place, and she’d continue to the store.
Only fifty feet to the steps of the store. Her nerves were still in place, and she fought hard to keep them there even though her steps became heavier.
She saw shelves of food items and dry goods through two large plate glass windows. The rocking chair to the left of the front door moved. She stopped in her tracks. A tabby jumped from the chair and strolled across the front door. A sign of life, but none yet detected through the windows.
The sign on the door said, OPEN.
She pulled open the door and toddled in. She panned left to right and didn’t see anyone. As she moved slightly to the right, she saw a man’s back behind the counter. She cleared her throat, and the man turned around and looked at her. He diverted his eyes from her as he attended to a customer who had placed a sack of flour on the counter.
The customer said, “Thank you, Mr. Davis,” and left.
She edged closer to the counter and raised her head slowly. “Oh, my God.” The carmine bruises to her eyes clashed with her skin that was the color of corn. “Who did that to you?”
She grimaced deeply and touched her rib cage. She spoke slowly and haltingly, as if each word was a monumental effort. “I got a beating last night.”
“Can I get you some Postum?” John asked.
“Okay.”
John poured the Postum in a noggin and handed it to her.
Her hand trembled, and John held his hands under the noggin until she had control of it. She took her first sip and quickly spit it out.
“Careful there, it’s hot.”
She blew short breaths into the noggin, then took another sip. As tears began to stream from her battered eyes, she sniffled, and she put the noggin on the counter. John handed her a tissue, and she dabbed the skin beneath her eyes.
A nerve from the bundle of nerves popped loose. “I think I better leave.” She turned and faced the door.
“Wait,” John said. “Tell me what happened.”
Although John had lost his trim shape, he looked several years younger than forty. He wiped his hands on his white apron. He moved quickly from behind the counter and stopped within two feet of the woman.
The bruises were even more pronounced up close; they looked like someone had painted them on her face. He moved closer and held her face with his right hand as his eyes moved across her face pocked with acne, inspecting the damage. He lowered her lower lip; a few teeth were missing. He raised her upper lip, none were missing.
“Here,” John said pointing to the chair, “sit down.” John hung up the closed sign on the door and pulled down the shade, hoping she’d feel more comfortable.
John handed her a handkerchief and, as soothingly as he could, said, “Now, tell me what happened.”
She dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief. A minute later she whispered, “Baker beat me.”
“Who is Baker?”
“He’ll kill me if …”
“If what? You tell me.”
“I can’t.”
John was exasperated. “Then why are you here?”
She recoiled slightly from John’s tone and unballed the handkerchief to dab her eyes again. But John’s sympathy had worn thin. “Go on home, Miss.… Tell your mother and father what happened to you.”
“My name’s Barbara.”
A slight opening, but not good enough. “Barbara, I need to open up my store. I may be losing money talking to you. We’ve been at this for a while now.”
She nodded. “Okay, Mr. Davis, it’s like this. Baker pay you rent to live in that house on your property.”
John shook his head. “Mr. Payne is in that house; he pays me rent.”
Barbara shook her head.
“Describe this Baker?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s his age?”
“Maybe your age, thirty or so.”
“It’s been awhile since I’ve held that number.”
“What else can you tell me about him?”
“Black mustache. A little darker than you. His walk a little funny. Like a duck.”
The walk gave him away. She had indeed described Albert Payne, John’s tenant.
“So Baker did this to you?”
She nodded. “Yeah, and some of his friends.”
“This Baker is Mr. Payne. How’d he get tagged with Baker?”
It was a nickname. “They say he know how to bake pies. He made me the best blueberry pie ever. You didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t. Apparently, there’re lots of things I don’t know about him. I want you to come to my house this evening. We’ll talk more. Stop by my house tonight.”
She nodded.
Barbara told John and Tilla all about what Payne was doing in the house. John’s rental was being used as a bordello. Payne accused Barbara of cheating him out of his money for a liaison she had with a customer. He had beaten her before using the same excuse.
John saw no need to go inside his rental. Payne had proven himself to be a good tenant. The rent was paid on time, and Payne he didn’t complain about anything. He never gave John an excuse to evict him. Seemed like it was the perfect setup.
Tilla wrapped her arms around Barbara and said, “Thanks for telling us this. You sure you got a place to go?”
She nodded.
Tilla handed her a bag of pastries.
She stood straight and had talked more confidently than she did earlier in the day. Her bundle of nerves had loosened and had settled to a more comfortable plateau. “Yes, Miss Tilla. Thanks for the bag.”
“You’re welcome, honey.”
She looked at John and Tilla and said, “Bye.”
Tilla’s children were always uppermost in her mind. A bordello was in her backyard right under her nose, and she had missed it. Something had to be done.
“John, we have six children now, ages one to fifteen. We don’t need this mess around us,” she said as they lay in bed. “We should have used the money you made from the sale of The Messenger and moved from this place.”
John could forgive Tilla for not thinking clearly. He knew how she felt about the children. “Where do you propose we go?” John asked as she brushed her long auburn hair, giving attention to each delicate strand.
Tilla wanted to be in a big city, something Roscoe had promised her—to live in a real city. “Anywhere but here,” she said. “Don’t you want to be in a bigger city?”
“Where’re we going?” He punctuated the air with his right forefinger and said, “This right here is home, right here in Mount Hope. I say we raise our children in this town. It’s the people who make the town. It’s the people who bring life to the town. The Davis name is a good brand name here. People know us. We got a store here. We got this house, the rental. Lots of people, colored and white, would like to have our house. We’re lucky enough to have land to grow crops. We got cattle, chickens, pigs. Got a couple of mares, a dobbin, and a Morgan. No other place better for colored folk. You’re interested in the big city? Moulton’s across the way. How about Birmingham? Sheffield? Crime is everywhere you look. Less of it here.”
John stopped for Tilla to say something. Her only riposte was having her arms folded across her chest. But that was a good sign for John. Her voice—her lyrical instrument—was at rest. He had scored solid points where Tilla was often ahead.
He had to protect his family. “I’ve got to clean up this mess in my backyard. I’ve got to find out for sure if Barbara was straight with me. I can’t accuse Mr. Payne of something without proof. I’ll need evidence. I’ll get Jimmy to go over there one night. He’ll ask for Barbara, and ask how much. If what Barbara told me is true, I got to move him out. Hate to lose the money, but I can’t have my children surrounded by that filth. Theo will go with me. The boy is fifteen now. I reckon he’s old enough now to know about the wretched things that go on in this world.”
Tilla wanted off the subject she had broached. It was like starting a fight with no plan on how to win it. She had missed her period, and she knew the answer. Even at thirty-four, this pregnancy was easy to catch, just like the others. She laid her head on John’s chest; her right hand rested against his belly. “John, …” she said, “we’re going to have another baby.”
John stroked, rubbed, and scratched her head as on cue, just like he did when his dog rolled over on his back, expecting a belly rub. “That’ll be seven, he said. “You want a boy or girl?”
“She turned the question on him. “What do you want?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just another mouth to feed.”
She listened to John’s heart beat against his chest, wondering if John’s heart was as pure as the day she fell in love with him. She raised her head and used her right hand to lift up off his chest. She tilted her head left, then right, looking at John as though she was staring at a stranger, a person’s heartbeat perhaps she no longer recognized. “Who is this man sharing this bed with me?”
“My name is John Moses Davis, father of Tilla Davis’s six children, soon to be seven,” he said.
She huffed: “Well, act like it. Don’t say our child’s just another mouth to feed. They’re precious gifts from the Lord.” She then turned on her heels and walked to the kitchen to start cleaning.
John learned that Barbara had told it straight about Payne.
Payne told Jimmy that Barbara was unavailable, but he could have someone else. “Stop by tomorrow ’round nine o’clock, and I’ll take care of you.”
“Where’s the room we use?” Jimmy asked.
“Anywhere you want upstairs,” Payne told him.
“Can I see for myself?” Jimmy asked.
“Not now, it’s busy up there.” Varing pitches of erotic screams were heard coming from the second floor.
“Come by tomorrow,” Payne said impatiently, ready to close the door.
As Jimmy stepped down off the dimly lit porch, two women sashayed in his direction. The portly of the two women peered at Jimmy, saying in a raspy voice, “You want some?”
Jimmy had heard many sermons from Reverend Owen about vices such as prostitution. The good word was everything to him. He gave a terse answer, “No!”
k
Tilla wiped her brow after she put the scrub brush into the soapy bucket in the kitchen. She sat on her knees, momentarily wondering how John would confront Payne. She reached in the bucket to retrieve the scrub brush and resumed scrubbing the poplar wood kitchen floor. With six children, it was a never-ending battle to keep it clean.
Maggie ran across the wet kitchen floor and slid and fell, hitting her head on the icebox. “Maggie Mae,” Tilla said, “you see Mama’s working. Now you and Pearl take that play outside, unless you want to help. Take Claude with you. He wants to play.”
Maggie was at the age where she was confused whether or not to cry. The bump on her head stung; her heart told her to cry, but her mind prevailed. She was a big girl now and needed to show it.
Maggie rubbed her head trying to make the sting go away. “Maggie Mae, start stepping.”
“But Mama, it’s hot out there.”
“You heard me. Go on,” she said, looking at the girls to make sure their dresses where suitable to play in.
Tilla knew that their day would come when they would get their assigned chores. But they still had age on their side: Maggie was eight and Pearl six. Thirteen-year-old Bessie and twelve-year-old Eunice had already begun their distaff tasks of cooking, cleaning, and ironing, and whatever else Tilla demanded. When not working in the field or attending school, Theo helped his father in the store.
Maggie, Pearl, and Claude played tag with Kathleen, the young white neighborhood friend, under a canopy of hackberry trees. Pearl spotted John turning the corner on his way home. She smiled and said, “Look, Daddy’s home.”
Maggie and Pearl ran to John and grabbed him by the waist.
“How’re my girls?” John said as he wiped his brow with the back of his right hand.
“It’s hot out here, Pa. Mama made us come out here to play,” Maggie said.
“You do what your mama say, you hear me?
John looked over by the hackberry trees and saw Claude and Kathleen sitting up against one of the trees.
Claude wore a cotton shirt and tweed knee-length pants. His stockings had fallen to his ankles. Kathleen’s original orange-colored dress was faded. The black soutache trim on the dress was nearly gone, and the little that remained barely hung on. Any form the dress had was long gone. She had dark gamine eyes, and her naturally ruddy cheeks were splotched with dirt caked on her face.
Looking into four-year-old Claude’s blithesome eyes, John said, “Hi, son.”
“Hi, Pa,” Claude burbled.
“Son, pull up you stockings.”
“Yes, Pa.”
“Kathleen, how’s your father doing?” John asked while noticing that every time he saw her she wore the same tattered dress.
Kathleen’s father was off work due to a mishap at work. He had shattered his radius in his right arm when he fell on the job. Ever since her father’s injury, John worried about the family. He gave them vegetables from his field to help a hapless man and his family who had become mendicants. With her large blue eyes, Kathleen looked at John, seeming to ask him to adopt her. She was losing her way, not quite sure where she fit into a society that was confusing to her. She and her family counted on favors from the Davis family, yet society had defined her and her family as being superior to the colored people.
“He’s okay, I guess.. After a pause, she then said, “Mama say can we have some onion blades? We really like them, Mr. John.
“I’ll get you some before you leave.” He reached into his pocket and said, “I’ve got some candy for you kids.” He threw the candy in the air and the kids scrambled to fetch the pieces scattered on the dirt road.
As John walked to the house, the thought of his girls becoming Payne’s victims caused him to stop and shudder. He needed to act.