11

I stayed off by myself and figured most everything out.

I may not have the story exactly straight but what I do not say or know to say is just not important enough anyway to change the main things that happened.

Knowing or thinking I knew all she did helped me get along at her house.

Now I know what they mean by stumbling around in the dark.

When I found out her story I figured I’d march myself right up to Hollywood and get a Sherlock Holmes job. It took some real figuring to piece it all together and mainly I had to keep myself from adding more to the story than actually happened.

That comes from reading too many old stories.

My mama’s mama kept a tab on my daddy and me through Rudolph and Ellis.

Then Ellis died.

I do not know how he died but I want to say murder. I know that is made up just because the story would go a lot smoother if he was murdered with a piano wire by my mama’s mama who had on a black hood.

But all that counts is that he died and Rudolph was left to keep up with how me and my daddy operated. He reported to my mama’s mama everything he heard the old men say about us while they chewed their cud at the store. He reported what the wives said about us while they squeezed their loaf bread or hung out the Monday wash.

Yeah old Ellen runs up and down the road with her little nigger friend they might say.

Yeah old Ellen is always bothering so-and-so to give her a ride home from the grocery store.

There ain’t no telling what goes on in that house when the sun goes down they must have said.

And Rudolph would hear a day’s worth and trot back to my mama’s mama’s like a yard dog with a fresh sparrow dangling from his mouth. Then she would pat his head and hand him one envelope for us and one for him because he did such a good job.

I could not swear all that is true because it sounds so extra ordinary when I run it back through my head. But as odd as I think it sounds I feel in my bones like I am on the right track.

I do not know all about her going to the bank and getting the farm and how she got all the land from Rudolph but all that counts like I said before is that she did it. And then you can move on to why she did it.

It must have got her goat when old Ellen ran away from him. That was very good for me but bad for him because that is when she let go everything she had been holding back just because she did not have it in her to starve a girl.

The way she arranged it was she kept giving Rudolph the envelopes to drop in the mailbox but she put less and less money in them each week. Only a little money each time so all he could think to do with such a small amount was waste it fast.

He could have ruined his own self in time but she was tired of waiting for him to wither up.

He would waste that little bit of money so in the middle of the wasting he might forget his life had always been bad and was getting worse all the time.

I always figured that a little imagination to go along with the money would have stretched a dollar here and there. But he was fresh out of hope as he liked to say about the wishing and spitting in your hands to see which one fills up first.

He was weak as water I have heard more than one person say about him. And that is just what you do not need to be if you have dealings with my mama’s mama. She would come rolling in a wave over you and leave you there on your behind choking on the thing you had intended to say. And she could keep coming with her flood and stand laughing at you struggling in the waves of your forgetting.

That is how she confused my daddy.

I maybe should be sad and pray over him when I picture him fighting long distance with her but I blame him for making his own self weak enough to be beat to death by a little old lady no matter how mean she is.

Men and daddies are not supposed to be like that. But if you pet and groom your strong heart long enough you will turn it into a damn lap dog heart. But on the outside you still try to show off how brave you are.

All she had to do was wait for Rudolph to drag up his last bird. But it was a flag instead.

God if I ever told Julia all of this she would say it blows my mind.

Which is exactly what happened to my daddy.

He had a vein or a head fuse explode so he died. It makes my own head hurt just to think about it.

Her flu got worse when it got cold outside. She’d sweat and then yell at me because she was freezing to death. I had trouble keeping up with her changing so much.

That syrup I had been feeding her ran out and she swore the medicine had been making her sick all along. You cannot reason with somebody like that.

I just did the best I could with what I had to work with.

I never let her get up and go to the toilet by herself. You let a old person do their business alone and next thing you know you have a broke hip on your hands. I never let her take a tub bath either. It is too easy to slip. I washed her off one limb at a time. Each day I could feel the meanness draining out of her body but her mind was still wound up tight as a tick.

She never complained about the care I gave her. Just about my eyes.

You got that bastard’s eyes she would say to me when I washed off her face.

So I would shut them.

I cannot help my eyes is what I wanted to say to her. But I just said to myself I will look after this one good and I will not let a soul push me around this time.

But what if I let her die tonight? What would folks think about us here in this house together and her dead and me alive?

Lord it can happen because it has happened before. But she won’t die while I’m in charge.

I will let her sleep but I’ll wake her up if she starts to die. I hope she can give me some warning. That is what I should have done with the first one.

Go ahead and stir yourself awake. I might have woke you by accident but all the good sleeping I let you have should count for something. Go ahead and cough hard. You wake up now.

I want to ask you a question.

Like what?

Well I know why you hated my daddy but what about me? Why can’t you see I am not like him?

All I know is when I look in your face I see that bastard and everything he did to my girl.

But I did not do anything I say back to her and wonder at the same time why I said that because we all know it is not what I did to her but what I did not do for her.

And her gate is flung open and there is nothing left but the hearing of all she has left to say to me.

Why you little bitch. You set up in that house like the world owed you a living. In cahoots with your damn daddy. I know all that went on. You laid up all in that house with your daddy’s buddies. I’m surprised you don’t have some little nigger baby hanging off your titty. But you left before I could get the both of you at one pop. You and your daddy let her take them pills or more than likely drove her to it. And then you left her to die. And then somebody comes to my house and tells me how they found you all laid up next to her like a little idiot. But hi ho I got you now. You might have run out before that bastard got what was coming to him but I swear you will never stop paying for your part.

All the people who said things about me were wrong I told her.

But it was no use just like when you are standing there with the smoking pistol you found beside the bleeding man and you try to tell the police you found him there and you have a good reputation and this is just a terrible accident.

So I decided to spend the rest of my life making up for it. Whatever it was. Whatever I decided one day I actually did. One day if I ever sorted the good from the bad and the memories of what I wish was true.

You just remember you are mine now she said and she eased back down on her bed and slept.

And while she slept I read by the window or watched her bed until it was an ocean and the blankets were waves I had never seen except in my head. And I thought of how far I am from the water rolling but I am here with an old woman breathing at the same time with her.

I could wake her up and ask have you ever been to the ocean? but I already know the answer. She has not. You can tell.

It would humble you I whisper to her sleeping if you for one time stood by something stronger than yourself.

And while she sleeps I think this would be a perfect time for her to die.

I sit by the window and fan the curtains back and forth to keep some air moving on her. She sleeps better cool. I fan those curtains that are heavy and figured like a oil picture. They weigh I know more than my own skinny self I know much more than the sheets my mama sewed for curtains. She would hang them over the windows and look at them sad like she wished they were out of a book or these that do not let in much light.

My mama’s mama sleeps most of the time. All she says clear for me to understand is you best take better care of me than you did of your mama. And each time she says that I promise loud I will so we might not hear the other one who says kill her.

But I did not kill her just like I did not kill my mama or my daddy.

She died in spite of me.

I tried to make her keep breathing and when she stopped I blew air in her like I should have. She did not live but at least I did not slip into a dream beside her. I just stood by the bed and looked at her dead with her face pleasant now to trick Jesus. I said to her the score is two to one now. I might have my mama’s soul to worry over but you’ve got my daddy’s and your own. The score is two to one but I win.

I stood over her hoping she was the last dead person I knew for a while.