Motten Street drew me outside the range of my mother’s voice on those hot summer days—not every day—but just as often as it dared, and sometimes I would take Laura and Edna with me to play hula hoop, hopscotch, or hide and seek. There were days when Mama forbade me to leave the house, but Motten Street would call and I could not resist. I would depart Penyon Road under the pretense of searching for work, and I would spend those days in Skeeter’s kitchen watching Mary Ann grow.
Skeeter loved to laugh and would try to make a joke of anything. I sat across from him at his kitchen table as he held Mary Ann on his lap.“Look at her,” he said.“She looks like a prune even when she’s sleeping. That’s why God gives babies a mama and daddy. Somebody gotta think they’re cute.You look at her and tell me if you see anything cute.”
“You’re lucky Martha Jean can’t hear you,” I said.
“Oh, I tell ’em all the time this a ugly baby.Watch this.”
He glanced over at Martha Jean who was washing dishes at the sink. He waited until she turned and he had her attention, then he made a face, raked his fingers across it, and pointed to Mary Ann. Martha Jean smiled, shook her head, and turned back to the sink.
“See,” Skeeter said.“She knows.Tell you what, you show me one cute thing on this little prune and I’ll let you hold her for a spell.”
I walked around the table and stood behind Skeeter to peer down at the baby.“Her nose,” I said. “It’s perfect.”
“Shoot.” Skeeter laughed.“You must be kidding.That’s Velman’s nose. Can’t even call it a nose.That’s a snout.”
“Her hair,” I said, anxious to hold my niece.
Skeeter pretended to study Mary Ann’s hair, then he looked up at me. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll give her that. She took hair after her mama.” He placed Mary Ann in my arms, then immediately rose from his chair and began to laugh. “Guess you get to change the diaper.That’ll probably be cute, too.”
“Skeeter,” I protested in mock anger.
I didn’t mind changing Mary Ann. I liked being alone with her. Her innocence was soothing to me, and I thought I would have liked to crawl inside her, to start life all over again. I took her into her parents’ room and changed her diaper, then closed my eyes and held her against my chest until she began to protest.
When I returned to the kitchen, Martha Jean was sitting at the table and Skeeter was shuffling a deck of cards.
“You wanna get in on this hand?” he asked.
“We don’t play cards,” I answered.“We don’t know how.”
“Who don’t?”
“We don’t.”
“Speak for yourself. Martha Jean plays.You want me to deal you a hand and teach you how?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s too hot to sit in a kitchen playing cards.Why don’t we go outside?”
“Who wants to go out there and have to listen to Melvin and Dot going at it like two bulldogs? I’d rather stay in here and be hot.”
The Tates had been arguing for close to an hour. By the constant changes in the level of their voices, I assumed they were taking their disagreement back and forth from the house to the yard. It was such a frequent occurrence on Motten Street that most people just ignored them.
“They the strangest two I know,” Skeeter said.“All Melvin wants to do is drink all day. I can’t understand it. He drinks anything he can get his hands on. It’s gonna kill him, too.” He held five cards in his hand and studied them, then said, “Here’s the funny thing about it. Melvin ain’t worked a job in years. Dot gives him the money to drink with, then when he gets drunk, she spends half the night and most of the next day fussing about it.The next morning she gives him money all over again.You tell me what sense that makes.”
“Maybe she wants him to drink himself to death,” I said.
“That’s what I think, too,” Skeeter agreed.“But if that’s the case, why fuss about it?”
Martha Jean placed five cards on the table and smiled at Skeeter. He looked at the cards, leaned back on his chair, and winked at her. “See,” he said. “She beats me about eight hands out of ten.”
Martha Jean went to the stove to check on her bread. Still holding Mary Ann, I went over to the back door and tried to catch a breeze. It was humid inside and out, and perspiration made my blouse stick to my back.
“Does Martha Jean ever make sandwiches?” I asked.“It’s too hot to be in a kitchen cooking.”
“Martha Jean does pretty much what she wants,” Skeeter said. “There be days when she won’t come near this kitchen. I be so glad when she do that I just come on in here and sit with her.Who you think wanna eat sandwiches?” He tapped his watch and signed, “Work.”
“I’ll walk with you,” I said, turning Mary Ann over to Martha Jean. “I’d better get on home.”
Skeeter and I were walking toward the railroad tracks when he spotted my mother’s car. I was not where I should have been, and I knew I was caught. The car rolled in our direction, and Skeeter pulled me out of the way just as the front tires hit the sidewalk.
“Get in this car, Tangy Mae!” Mama snapped.
“I thought that was you, Rozelle,” Skeeter said lightly, leaning down at her window.“You almost ran us over.”
“Go to hell, Skeeter. And get out my way.”
She was drunk. She and the entire car smelled of alcohol; it was not a pleasant ride. I found myself pressing my foot against the floor, trying to brake, as the car sped along the streets, barely missing poles, trees, and parked cars.
We had almost made it home when Mama stopped the car on the side of Fife Street. She opened her door and got out. I stared after her but turned my head when I saw that she was being sick right out in the open where people sitting on their porches could see her.
“Disgusting,” I mumbled.
She got back in the car and lit a cigarette. I would not look at her, but I heard her inhale, and I smelled the smoke as it circulated throughout the car and drifted out of my window.
“I heard what you called me, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one damn bit,” she said, and attempted to press the burning tip of her cigarette against my thigh. I reached for the door handle, prepared to jump from the car. Sparks flew across the seat, and my mother swore and threw the cigarette from her window.
We made it home safely, and she parked the car in the field like a sane and sober person. She waited until we were inside before she told me why she had come looking for me.
“That damn Mr. Pace was out here today,” she said. “What’s going on between the two of y’all, Tangy Mae? He say they willing to give you pay if you go to that white school. I asked him how much he was willing to pay, but he wouldn’t tell me. So I told him you can’t go but he can see you out at Frances’s place any night he takes a notion.”
“No, Mama, you didn’t!” I cried, so mortified by her words that I did not realize I was pulling my own hair until Tarabelle reached out to stop me.
“‘No, Mama, you didn’t, ’” my mother mimicked.“Yes, hell, I did, and I think he left here mad about something.Tangy Mae, I don’t want them school people coming to my house.” She lit another cigarette. “And you get yo’self cleaned up.You gotta make a run wit’ me.”
“I’ve got the curse, Mama,” I lied.
She shifted her gaze to Tarabelle. “Tarabelle, get yo’self cleaned up.”
“I got it, too, Mama, ”Tarabelle said and glanced at me.
Mama sat with her chin resting against her chest and said nothing. Finally, her head rose and she said, “Laura Gail, you got the curse, too?”
“What curse, Mama?” I heard my sister ask.“What’s a curse?”
Tarabelle and I glanced at each other.We had known, had even predicted this moment in time. “I’ll go,” I said.
My mother laughed.“You damn right, you’ll go,” she said.“You think you smart, Tangy Mae, but you the laziest, sorriest something I ever gave birth to.”
I went out to the woods and ran the length of the path as hard and fast as I could, then I returned to the house to scrub my lazy, sorry self for a trip to the farmhouse.