Coming of Age in Mississippi (25 page)

Lola looked so lonesome around Maple Hill. He never talked to anyone but James. Unlike James, he thought of himself as a real woman. James never acted queer around the restaurant until he was a little drunk. Lola was the helpless, little, fragile female type. It was hard for me to believe all that
James had said about how tough and violent Lola was when I saw him at work in the restuarant. But everyone else in the place knew about his prison fight and I had seen him poke his razor out of his mouth at James. He had a way of holding his mouth like it was full of food. James told me that he had the razor resting on his tongue then and that if you said something to him, you could actually see him fit the razor into the top of his mouth before he spoke.

One day I was sitting in the pantry alone, at the little table where the workers usually ate, when Lola came in and stood over me. He stood there for a while without saying anything. I began to tense up because I couldn’t sense what was on his mind.

“Why do you wear your hair like that?” he asked like he was trying to be nice.

“Huh!” I replied in a trembling voice.

“Are you scared of me?” he asked and paused for me to answer. “I’m not a monster even though you think I am. So you don’t have to be scared of me.”

“I don’t think of you like that!” I said defensively.

“Why do you treat yourself like you do? You could look much better even though everybody around here thinks you’re hot shit.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sincerely interested.

“Look at you with your hair pinned up in that little ducktail in the back. If you want short hair why don’t you cut that little piece off in the back? What’s it back there for anyway? It’s not long enough to do anything with. Then look at your plain eyes. Some women would give anything for your long eyelashes. A little mascara wouldn’t hurt you. I don’t understand women like you. You are pretty and seem to know it. Yet you treat yourself like a plain Jane. You remind me too much of my sister,” he said, then hurried back to the kitchen as Waite came into the pantry.

I didn’t know what to think of Lola after that. It frightened me that he was interested in how I looked. I thought he was
attracted to me at first, but a few minutes later, I saw him swishing up in some man’s face. I thought it over and came to the conclusion that he was just trying to be nice and wanted to be my friend.

The following morning, I went to work with my hair pinned in the back in what Lola had called a ducktail. I had tried for half an hour to change the style and couldn’t do anything with it so I finally just pinned it up. Lola gave me a good sermon on why I insisted on being ugly. He talked about me from head to toe. He commented on my hair, the sagging clothes I wore to hide my body, and even the shoes I wore. He finally convinced me that I could look much better, so that evening I stopped at a beauty shop and had my hair cut and bought some mascara. Before long Lola also had me wearing straight dresses and uplift bras.

When school started that fall, I began to really appreciate what Lola had done for my appearance. Most of my classmates and teachers commented on how I had changed and how good I looked. I had made good money from tips after I became a waitress, so I bought a lot of cheap clothes. I bought them all in the style Lola had said was best for me and just about every day for the first month or so I wore a different outfit to school. The clothes emphasized my body just like Lola had said they would. I really looked good especially with the mascara and the new hairdos he suggested.

I looked so good that it became somewhat of a problem. Whenever I was in town white men would stare me into the ground. I was shopping with Mama one Saturday when a group of white men followed us. One of them walked up to me and asked me where I lived. “What y’all wanta know where she live for? That ain’t none of yo’ business! What y’all doin’ followin’ us anyhow? If I catch y’all doin’ it again um gonna tell Ed Cassidy,” Mama spoke up quickly before I said anything. She spoke so forcefully, the white men went away.

When they left, Mama said to me, “They think every
Negro woman in Centreville who look like anything should lick their ass and whore around with them.” She warned me that I must never be caught in town after dark alone and if I was ever approached by white men again, I should walk right past them like I was deaf and blind.

It was easy for me to ignore the white men in town. But it wasn’t so easy for me to ignore Mr. Hicks, my basketball coach, and the only single male teacher at school. I knew before that Mr. Hicks liked me a lot, but I thought he liked me because I was his best tumbler and basketball player. I never suspected he had any long-range plans for me or desired me physically. Now the only looks he ever gave me were looks of affection and whenever he spoke to me it was in the tone of a lover. Every other Sunday or so he would just happen by the house to see if I were home, or to say something about what would happen next week, or to show me some new pointers in basketball or just because he was driving through the community. He dropped by so frequently Mama started hinting around that he liked me. I got the feeling that she didn’t mind that he did. In fact, she seemed pleased. Once we were sitting on the porch when Hicks drove by and waved and Mama commented, “I sho’ wish I had married a schoolteacher.” Then I knew she was hoping I would marry Hicks.

It became obvious at school that Hicks liked me, and a lot of the girls on the basketball team began to get jealous. We had shown great teamwork before. Now when we practiced, the girls would freeze me out of the game. Then when Hicks scolded them for not passing the ball to me and messing up most of our plays, they would throw me the ball as hard as they could or over my head. Things got so bad that Mr. Hicks threatened to cut out the girls’ team altogether. One evening while we were practicing one of the girls knocked me down, then ran flat-footed over me like I was part of the ground. I was so mad I jumped up and ran after her ready to tear her to bits. Just as I reached out to grab her, Mr. Hicks stepped between us. He stopped the game and lectured to us right there
on the court. He told us to think seriously about why we were playing ball. He asked why we were fighting each other if we really wanted to play and continue to have a winning team. Then he dismissed us and gave us a week to think about the questions he had asked.

Within that week, the girl who knocked me down came to me and apologized, and the captain went to each of the girls for her decision about abolishing the team. When Hicks called us together again, the captain got up and said that the girls had unanimously voted to continue playing. After that Hicks didn’t treat me any better than the other girls. He didn’t call me sweet names or look for excuses to touch me every time he was near me; now I began to respect him again. I think I appreciated his change of attitude toward me more than any of the other girls did.

Right after Hicks had cooled off on me, I began having problems with Raymond. I would come in from work in the evening and he would be hanging around the house. Sometimes he would be sitting in the yard, under the pecan tree, and when I walked out there, he would stare at me long and hard. One evening I was sitting in my room in front of the mirror, combing my hair. I was wearing a real low-cut blouse. He had walked out of the kitchen past my bedroom window and suddenly I saw him in the mirror standing outside staring at me. I pretended I didn’t see him. He stood out there for a long time giving me wanting eyes. After that I became a little frightened of him. I stopped wearing low-cut blouses and even stopped wearing shorts or tight pants around him. But he still continued to look at me wantingly. I got the feeling he thought that I had begun screwing around when I was in New Orleans because I had matured so. Then too he knew Hicks liked me because he had come by the house so much. I knew that he was jealous of Hicks and didn’t want Hicks or anyone else to touch me.

Once when Mama, Raymond, and all the children were sitting around watching TV, I came into the room and sat
down. Raymond glanced at me angrily, got up grumbling to himself, and stormed out of the room. Mama looked at him as he left and a hurt expression came across her face. I could tell she knew exactly what was going on with Raymond. She got up and followed him out of the room and I heard them exchange angry words in the kitchen. As I sat there, I remembered the day I had mentioned to Lola that I had a stepfather and Lola had said:

“Stepfathers ain’t no damn good. Once my cousin remarried some no-good man and put him over her teen-age daughter. One day she came home and caught that fucker in bed with her child.”

“All stepfathers ain’t like that,” I had said defensively.

“Like hell they ain’t! He never touched you or brushed up against you or looked at you funny?”

“Raymond ain’t like that. Besides, if he did like me he would never mess with me ’cause he know I can’t stand him.”

“But why you can’t stand him then?” Lola had asked.

Then I told him about Miss Pearl them and how bad they treated Mama. I told him that I hated Raymond because he let them treat Mama like dirt.

Now I knew that Lola was right, and I knew if things got any worse, I would have to leave Centreville.

Two weeks later, Samuel O’Quinn was murdered. One night as he was walking the few blocks from town to his house he was shot in the back from close range with a double-barreled shotgun. The blast left a hole through his chest large enough to stick a fist through.

His death brought back memories of all the other killings, beatings, and abuses inflicted upon Negroes by whites. I lay in bed for two days after his death recalling the Taplin burning, Jerry’s beating, Emmett Till’s murder, and working for Mrs. Burke. I hated myself and every Negro in Centreville for not putting a stop to the killings or at least putting up a fight
in an attempt to stop them. I thought of waging a war in protest against the killings all by myself, if no one else would help. I wanted to take my savings, buy a machine gun, and walk down the main street in Centreville cutting down every white person I saw. Then, realizing that I didn’t have it in me to kill, I slowly began to escape within myself again.

The following Sunday on my way to Centreville Baptist, I walked the same sidewalk I always walked, the one where Samuel O’Quinn had died. As I stood looking at the bloodstained spot where he had fallen, pangs of anger hit me like lightning, paralyzing me emotionally. Sitting up in church later, I couldn’t make myself feel anything when the preacher casually mentioned “the passing of Mr. O’Quinn.”

Samuel O’Quinn had just returned from a long stay up North. A few weeks after he was murdered, it was whispered among the Negroes that he was killed because he was an NAACP member. He was said to have joined during his stay. His plans were to come back to Centreville and try to organize the Negroes. He supposedly knew all the facts underlying the Taplin burning and other mysterious killings in and around Centreville and Woodville. However, when he returned to Centreville and began seeking out Negroes whom he thought he could trust, he found only a few. And out of that few, someone squealed. Before he was able to organize his first meeting, he was killed. The other men involved hushed up or left town in fear of their lives.

Later talk among the Negroes about his death brought out that Principal Willis was one of the biggest Uncle Toms in the South. It was said that he was the one who squealed on Samuel O’Quinn and also helped plot his death. Even later, a Negro on his deathbed confessed that he and another Negro, who is walking around alive and healthy today, were paid five hundred dollars to murder Samuel O’Quinn and the money was delivered by Willis. It never came out which whites were behind the killing, but everyone figured it was the same bunch that had pulled all the others. Every time I saw Willis
at school after that, I hated his guts. At night I used to have dreams about killing him.

After Samuel O’Quinn’s murder, I became a real loner. I spent most of my time in school, at work, or in church. Whenever I was home, I stayed in my room to avoid Raymond. I even moved the piano in there. I didn’t have any contact with my classmates or teachers outside the classroom. When I was at work I hardly spoke to Mrs. Hunt. Because she was a part of Centreville’s white community and didn’t condemn what they were doing, I considered her as guilty as the ones who did the killing.

It became almost impossible for me to go to school or work. I had hoped that I could finish high school and then leave Centreville for good. Now I made plans to leave at the end of that semester. I would go to New Orleans to work at the restaurant, then finish high school at night. I planned to take Adline with me because I didn’t want to leave her there around Raymond.

One Sunday morning, in early November, Adline and I went to Sunday school and church as usual. It was about two o’clock that afternoon when church let out and I headed home to spend the rest of the day in my room at the piano. When we got home, Mama and Raymond were sitting on the porch. Mama was sitting there picking bumps in her face with a needle, looking in a small piece of broken mirror, as she did every Sunday. When I walked up on the porch, I pulled Mama’s hair playfully and ran past her into the house as she hit at me. I went straight to my bedroom, sat down at the piano, and started playing “Does Jesus Care.”

“Essie Mae, ah’ll sing while you play. All right?” Mama yelled from the porch.

“O.K. Wait till I change clothes and then come in here,” I answered.

After I had changed into something comfortable I began playing again and waited for Mama to come in. I played a couple of songs and she still hadn’t come so I went onto the
porch to tell her I was ready. Raymond was sitting there alone. I walked out in the yard to see if she was under the pecan tree. She wasn’t, so I sat on the corner of the bottom step and looked under the house to see if she was in the backyard. I looked up at Raymond. Just as I was about to ask him where Mama was, he jumped up out of the rocking chair and stormed into the house cursing.