Mama Black Widow Read online

  Auto headlights started to burst on in the infant night like the orbs of awakening vampires. Frederick and Carol were laughing and having a ball as Frederick inched the Ford forward in the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

  And then suddenly Carol’s voice strangled on a high note of laughter. I jerked erect and leaned forward against the back of the front seat. She pressed her palms tightly against her chest, and her yellow face was white and contorted.

  I thought she had been shot or something, and then I followed her wildly staring eyes and the blood seemed to drain from me.

  It was Cuckoo Red! He was maybe twenty feet away slowly driving Lockjaw’s limousine Cadillac toward us in the heavy traffic going east toward the Loop on the other side of the white center line. The Ford was halted.

  From a great distance and above the roaring inside my head, I heard Frederick shouting, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  Carol was mutely staring ahead.

  I heard a choking voice that I couldn’t be sure was mine say, “Cuckoo Red over there.”

  Red pulled the Caddie toward us, and he was halted with a front fender no more than three feet from the Ford’s fender. If Red had turned his head even slightly, he would have looked right into the Ford’s front seat.

  Carol and Frederick were like wax figures sitting rigidly and scarcely breathing. I saw Red’s lips move. I looked past his face and saw Lockjaw and his chalky-faced sweetheart on the backseat.

  I perched stiffly on the edge of the seat for what seemed like forever and trembled waiting for someone in the limousine to look inside the Ford.

  Then the OOGAH! OOGAH! of an old car blowing its horn behind us almost sprang the safety on my bowels as Red, attracted to the sudden sound, seemed to look directly at me. Frederick didn’t help at all when in his haste to move ahead he killed the Ford’s engine.

  But luckily it caught on the first grind of the starter, and I fell back onto the seat in limp exhaustion and relief as Frederick was able to put thirty feet between us and the limousine.

  It had been a terrible trauma for Carol in her delicate condition because Frederick had to stop twice before we got home so Carol could be ill outside the car. That was the last time they went to the movies together. They went only to the “you know where” on Tuesday and Friday nights.

  Winter’s freezing winds, snow and ice disappeared under April’s warm sun. Frederick drove his father to Minnesota on a business trip around April 10. He told Carol he expected to be back inside of three weeks and that he’d write her every day at the cafe. He advised Carol not to write him since he couldn’t be sure he’d be at any location long enough to receive a letter.

  Carol started suffering the day after he left. She was an edgy, lovesick female by the weekend after Frederick’s leaving.

  Lockjaw and Red, heavily laden with packages, came Saturday noon. Mama and I were alone in the flat. Lockjaw and Mama went into her bedroom and squabbled.

  The fragments I overheard pointed up the themes of Carol and her callous attitude toward his—Lockjaw’s—superb qualifications for suitor and husband. And Lockjaw’s mention of the payment of the loan Mama owed him made her squeal a promise she’d see to it that Carol’s attitude was revamped.

  He preached about how much it meant to him for Carol to be his date at a birthday shindig in his honor at a Southside cabaret. The monster stepped from Mama’s bedroom. He grinned and made the insane demand that Mama, in effect, transform Carol’s soul just to please him.

  He said in deadly tones, “Mrs. Tilson, I’ve been a friend. Believe me, you don’t want me to be your enemy. I’ve got a gut full of kissing Carol’s ass. I’m warning you to have the girl made up and dressed in that grand’s worth of glad rags. The shoes and everything are the size you gave me.

  “You gotta have her ready by eleven tonight. I don’t want no shitty look on her face like she’s been giving me. When I come to get her I wanta see her smiling at me like she’s overjoyed to see me, and I wanta see a certain light in her eyes to tip me off you wised her up that Lockjaw’s the biggest nigger on the Westside and she understands I’m due some respect and affection.

  “Mrs. Tilson, I didn’t deny you what you wanted from me so don’t try to play me for a chump and deny me what I want from you. You do and I’m gonna turn Red loose in this funky flat with orders to bust everything to pieces, including asses.

  “Oh yeah, if she’s fixed up swell and her mind is in the shape I want, I’m gonna put two C notes between your tiddies. See you at eleven sharp.”

  He and Red went out and left Mama standing in the hall with a fearful trancelike look on her face. I burst into tears, and she winced like she’d been struck. She put her arm around my shoulders, and we went to the sofa. I cried on her lap in great racking sobs for a long time.

  Finally I was able to choke out, “Mama, please don’t make Carol go with Lockjaw, huh?”

  Mama said sternly, “Mine yo’ bizness, Sweet Pea. Thet ole man ben gud tu th’ famli, an’ Carol ain’t no china plate. She groun as she ken git, an’ ain’t no harm en thet party an’ doin’ her mama uh favuh.”

  Mama sat thoughtfully for a while, and then she went to her bedroom. I heard the rustle and rip of packages being opened.

  Suddenly it hit me what I had to do to rescue Carol from Lockjaw at eleven P.M. I’d sneak out the back door and race to the cafe and convince Carol to walk right off the job in case Mama got jumpy and came to bring her home early.

  We would go to the Southside and stay with Soldier and Papa all night or maybe forever. I soft shoed down the hall past Mama gazing at herself in the dresser mirror wrapped in a white fox cape. I went to my bedroom and put on a sweater. I had crept through the back door and had run across the backyard toward the gangway leading to the sidewalk when I heard Mama’s shrill voice shout, “Sweet Pea!”

  I braked hard and turned. Mama was standing in bare feet outside the back door still draped in the gleaming white fur and calling me back with a frantic index finger. I guess she was reading my mind because I got a boff on the head as I went by her, and she never let me get beyond tripping range for the rest of the day.

  Bessie dropped in to change clothes around five, but I didn’t get a chance to say anything to her. And Junior hadn’t come home the night before, and since it was the weekend, he might not tear himself away from Ida until sometime Monday.

  Shortly after Bessie left, Mama led me to the kitchen and I watched as she prepared stuffed green peppers and tapioca pudding with caramel sauce for dessert. They were irresistible favorites of Carol’s.

  At six thirty Mama and I were sitting tensely at the front window when I got an idea and said, “Mama, Carol is going to wait for me to walk her home. Don’t you think I’d better hurry up there? She gets off any minute now.”

  Mama didn’t answer. She was staring at the old guy that lived across the street getting out of his Dodge. She raised the window and hailed him. He came to the window, and she gave him a dollar and the address of the restaurant where he was to pick up Carol.

  The old Dodge backfired down the street and so had my last bid to warn Carol away. Mama nervously paced the floor and frequently glanced out the front window. Finally the Dodge came, and Carol got out. I will always remember how pure and pretty she looked in her white uniform that very last day.

  Mama let her in with a warm hello and a barrage of groundwork chatter like, “Honey Pie, yu don’ look uh bit tahed. Yu sho yu ain’t gittin’ paid fuh ressin’ an’ lookin’ lak uh movie stah?”

  Carol came into the living room and hugged me. She sat on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. I gave Mama a mean look and massaged Carol’s feet.

  We were going down the hall to the kitchen for supper when Mama said casually, “Honey Pie, look whut Mama got on her bed.”

  Carol stepped into the bedroom and flipped on a wall light switch. She frowned and recoiled at the sight of the luxurious clothing neatly arrayed on the bed.

  Mama had a stricken l
ook on her face as Carol said in a breaking voice, “Mama, they nice an’ Ah see they come from Marshall Field’s agin.”

  Carol turned and ran down the hall to the bathroom. Mama looked puzzled. I wasn’t. I remembered how hurt Carol had been when Lockjaw told her the money Mama had spent on the clothes from Marshall Field’s had been something like a down payment on Carol.

  And after we passed the bathroom and heard Carol sobbing softly, Mama looked tortured. Mama nervously chewed her bottom lip when she saw the kitchen clock read eight o’clock. Carol joined us at the kitchen table and scarcely touched her food.

  Mama said in a sugary voice, “Honey Pie, them clothes ain’t mine. They’s your’n.”

  Carol looked Mama straight in the eyes and said evenly, “Mama, wheah yu git th’ money?”

  Mama said scoldingly, “Carol, Ah don’ want no ‘who shot John’ ’bout them bootiful clothes. Ah ain’t bought ’em, an’ whut do it mattah tu yu ’bout thet?”

  Carol slid her chair back from the table several inches and said, “Mama, it mattahs uh lot. Mama, did ole ugly Lockjaw git them clotes expectin’ me tu be his sweethaht?”

  Mama said sweetly, “Cose not, Honey Pie, cose not, an’ Ah’m so glad yu ast me. Thet ole fool jes’ want yu tu git glamus an’ ack lak yu sumpthin’ tu him enfrunt uh his frens at his birthday pahty tunight.

  “Yu ken play uhlong jes’ so he cain’t worry me to death. Will yu please, Honey Pie, if yu luv me, go long wif me an’ git uh bath an’ git them clothes on by leven o’clock?”

  Carol’s face was an incredulous mask as her mouth trembled to answer, and she was shaking her head wildly when she said sharply, “Ah luv yu, Mama, but Ah cain’t put them clothes on an’ go no place wif thet ole man.

  “And Mama, Ah ain’t said nuthin’ tu yu ’bout it befor’, but Lockjaw tole me right on frunt uv Sweet Pea thet he give yu uh down payment on me. Why yu do thet? An’ why yu ben beggin’ me tu marry up wif thet ole man if yu luv me? Ah don tole yu uh miyun times Ah cain’t stan tu look en his ugly face. Mama, Ah reely cain’t evun prahten tu be sumpthin’ tu ole Lockjaw now cause Ah’m en luv an’ Ah promised tu be true.”

  Mama sat frozen in shocked outrage as fury stormed in her eyes. Carol looked suddenly frightened and slid her chair even farther away and started to rise cautiously as Mama started breathing heavily and pressing her hands over her heart. Mama leaned forward and blurred a hand to Carol’s shoulder and shoved her back into the chair.

  Mama said coldly and rapidly, “Yu sassy, stinky-butt heifer. Yu tryin’ tu bus mah haht opun lak them dirty white folks. Sho Ah luv yu, thet’s why Ah’m still beggin’ yu tu hitch up wif Lockjaw so yu cain’t suffah lak Ah did wif uh po’ dumb niggah lak yu Papa an’ wuk yo’ looks an’ juices outta yu frum sunup tu sundown an’ don nevah have no luxries or nuthin’.

  “Yu marry thet ole man an’ Ah don’ have tu slave for them white folks anuther day, an’ yu owe yo’ ole wukhoss Mama thet. Now stop thet foolishment ’bout luvin’ some po-ass niggah an’ go git yoself glamus fo’ thet ole rich fool wif uh foot en th’ grave an’ th’ othah one en ah puddul uh grease.”

  Carol sat there blinking as if to block tears and biting her bottom lip and shaking her head slowly in the face of Mama’s unreasoning pressure.

  Then Carol said softly in a little girl’s voice that haunts me still, “Mama, Ah ain’t goin’ tu have nuthin’ tu do wif Lockjaw no mattah if yu stay wif th’ white folks til yu die, an’ Ah don’ nevah have no luxries.

  “Mah Papa is uh gud man, an’ it ain’t his blame thet the wurl is hard on black folks. Ah luv uh white man, Mama, an’ he ain’t goin’ tu let me slave fo’ no white folks an’ live en misery. As soon as we ken, we gon’ tu git uh big fahm, an’ yu and Papa ken help run it. An’ Mama, Ah got yo’ fust li’l gran chile inside me. Put yo’ han ovah heah an’ yu ken feel it movin’.”

  The expression on Mama’s face had become scary. Her eyes appeared to be popping from her head, and her face was hideously gray and twisted out of shape as she ground her teeth together and grimaced like a lunatic taunting herself in a mirror.

  Carol threw her hands up and cringed away. I screamed when Mama, with clenched fists, lunged at Carol with a hoarse-throated bellow of anguished frustration and rage. Carol was knocked to the floor flat on her back as she had risen to escape. Mama’s knees thudded into Carol’s midsection.

  Carol cried out in pain, and then she just lay there shielding her face with her arms and whimpering as Mama pounded her fists against Carol’s body and shouted over and over, “Who is the peckahwood fuckah, heifer? An’ wheah do he live?”

  I tugged at Mama and screamed at her begging her to stop. Mama’s mind was away that night because she didn’t stop until I threw myself down there between Carol’s body and her hammering fists. And then she stopped, and she stank of emotion sweat. But her face wasn’t twisted anymore, and she looked genuinely surprised to see the three of us sprawled on the floor.

  Carol was moaning. We helped her to her feet, and she mumbled something about the bathroom. Mama put an arm around her waist and took her into the bathroom.

  I heard Mama say something about “cord” and she didn’t have her key. I whispered a fast rundown on what had happened. She went into the bathroom and left the door cracked a couple of inches.

  I heard Mama say something about “cord” and “varmint.” I tried to see inside, but all I saw was Bessie vomiting into the face bowl near the door.

  I heard Mama say in urgent tones, “Bessie, han’ me uh razuh blade an’ thet alculhull on thet cabnet.”

  A few minutes later Bessie said, “Mama, thet blood is sho gushin’. We bettah call uh doctah.”

  Mama said, “Shet up an’ git thet douche bag full uv cold watah an’ mix thet alum powdah en wif it. We git her en bed an’ off her feet she be doin’ gud as th’ doctah ken do. An gimme uh piece uv thet newspapah undah thet bowl so Ah ken wrap the stinky varmint up.”

  They brought Carol out between them wrapped in a towel and put her tenderly to bed. Then Mama went into the bathroom and came out with the tiny fetus wrapped in a crumpled sheet of newspaper. She went out the back door. I watched through the kitchen window as Mama went to the huge steel garbage bin and casually hurled the pathetic package into it.

  I went to Carol, and she looked up at Bessie and me and murmured over and over in a plaintive voice, “Why Mama kilt mah baby? He didn’t do nuthin’ tu her. Whut Mama do wif mah baby?”

  I heard Mama come in the back door.

  I whispered in Carol’s ear, “Mama threw him in the garbage box, but I’ll get him and bring him to you when she goes to bed.”

  And there was bald hatred on Bessie’s face for Mama when she stuck her head into the bedroom and sweetly asked Carol if she wanted anything.

  Mama told Bessie to stay up until Lockjaw came at eleven P.M. Mama was holding her hand over her heart as she went slowly down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door behind her. Bessie stayed in the bedroom with Carol.

  I went quietly out the back door to the garbage bin. I climbed in and lit a candle. I poked and searched through the odious heap until my back ached and my arms felt numb. I just couldn’t find Carol’s baby among the scores of garbage parcels wrapped in newspaper.

  I did discover the crushed corpse of an old acquaintance. He had apparently been beaten to death because he wasn’t easily recognizable covered with a mass of dried blood, but I knew by his hacked off foot it was Crip, the old rat.

  Finally I gave up and went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Carol’s blood was on the floor, toilet seat and the bathtub. Bessie told me in the hall that Carol had stopped bleeding and was napping.

  I went and watched out the front window for Lockjaw and Cuckoo Red and shivered as I wondered if Lockjaw would have Red stomp us all into blobs of gore because Carol wasn’t going to his birthday party.

  I went to the back of the house a dozen times to check on Carol and the time. After the last check I was on my way dow
n the hall when someone rapped sharply on the front door and I almost tinkled in my pants.

  I stood there shaking until Bessie came to the door. It was Lockjaw and Red dressed to the brass knuckles in tuxedos and velvet-collared Chesterfield overcoats and natty black derbies tilted sportily.

  Lockjaw’s orb was flashing about to locate Carol.

  He said impatiently, “Well, where’s Carol?”

  Bessie knocked on Mama’s door.

  I heard Mama say feebly, “Cum en.”

  Bessie opened the door, and Lockjaw strode in wearing a no-nonsense look on his lopsided face with Red on his heels. I went down the hall into the bathroom and stuck an ear against the wall.

  I heard Mama blurt out rapidly, “Mistah Hudson, thet deceivin’ heifer uv mine don fell en the kitchen an’ drapped uh fo munt white varmint an’ mighty near give me uh stroke. Natchully she layin’ up weak an’ sick an’ cain’t go tu no pahty wif yu. Mabbe yu ken take Bessie stead uv Carol. Thet Bessie is sho bootiful when she’s fixed up.”

  There was a long tortured silence.

  Then Mama pleaded, “Please, Mistah Hudson an’ Mistah Red, don’ look at me lak thet. Ah sweah thet heifer drapped uh varmint. Them bloody clothes she wuz wearin’ is soaking en th’ bathtub. Please, Mistah Hudson, sen’ Mistah Red tu see Ah ain’t lyin’.”

  I heard Lockjaw tell Red to look in the tub and tell Bessie he wanted to see her. I ran into the kitchen. In a minute or so I heard Red and Bessie go into Mama’s bedroom. I went back to the bathroom.

  Red said, “That john looks like a slaughterhouse.”

  Lockjaw said, “Bessie, how would you like to get dressed up in a grand worth of glad rags and go to a fancy blowout with me?”

  Bessie said, “Wheah’s them glad rags?”

  Mama said, “They’s en mah closet.”

  I heard Bessie’s epic feet going across the floor and the closet door open.

  Lockjaw said, “Bessie, you better try the shoes on first.”

  After several long moments Lockjaw said, “Hell! Your dogs are too big. Bessie, you’re out of luck. The stores are closed, and your big bare dogs wouldn’t match the costume. Red bundle that stuff up and let’s get outta here.”