CHAPTER 34
R
UBY AND OTHELLA WAITED IN THEIR ROOM UNTIL ALL OF OLA
Mae’s other tenants had turned in for the night and the company had left. As soon as the house got quiet and dark, they slipped out the front door with their luggage. By this time, it was almost four in the morning.
It took three hours for them to walk to Maureen’s house, and only because they kept getting lost. It was a long and painful walk, with Othella in front, her feet throbbing like she’d stepped on a bed of nails. Ruby marched behind her like a disgruntled soldier, still cussing and fussing. “Lord have mercy! What did I let you talk me into
this
time?” Ruby growled.
Othella whirled around so suddenly, Ruby bumped into her. “I wish to God that you’d stop all that bitchin’ and moanin’. I’m doin’ the best I can. And if that ain’t good enough for you, you can go on back home, Ruby Jean. Or you can go on back to Miss Ola Mae’s house. I’m sure she don’t know we left yet, and you still got a key to her front door.”
“You know I can’t go back to that woman’s house. Now that we know she knows Glenn, and he’s goin’ to be stayin’ there, too. All I got to say is, this whorehouse-runnin’ white woman better come through or I am goin’ back home. You can stay here and hunt for a job and a husband till the Rapture for all I care. I just hope that the next time a man tries to make you suck his dick, you can get out of doin’ it on your own.”
Othella gave Ruby a contrite look. “Ruby Jean, we’re goin’ to be all right. I know Miss Mo’reen is goin’ to take real good care of us. We’ll be happy.”
“Livin’ in a whorehouse?”
“It’s better than livin’ on the street! It’s better than livin’ with people like that Ola Mae woman! And besides, we won’t stay at Miss Mo’reen’s that long. Every chance I get, I am goin’ to go out lookin’ for a better job and a nicer place for us to live.”
“What if you get pregnant by one of Miss Mo’reen’s tricks?” Ruby’s question caught Othella completely off guard.
“Pregnant?”
Ruby nodded. “We both know that that bleach douche don’t work all of the time,” she reminded.
“It works for me!” Othella hissed, resuming her walk down the darkened street. “Now come on. Miss Mo’reen is waitin’ on us, and we already much later than I told her we’d get there.”
As soon as Ruby and Othella entered the notorious red light district, they received a lot of stares. Nobody bothered them, though, because it was assumed that they were maids on their way to work.
“This is it,” Othella said, stopping in front of a large light blue house that reminded Ruby of the old plantations that the slave owners used to run. And that was exactly what it used to be. However, it had been renovated, repainted a few times, and brought up to speed as far as the modern world was concerned. Two white gliders sat on either side of the large wraparound front porch. Red and gold brocade curtains covered every window that Othella and Ruby could see. A neat row of fake red roses had been planted in the front yard and on the sides of the house, resembling a necklace.
“This looks like a palace,” Ruby said with a loud sigh, gazing around in awe.
“Well, it looks like a palace, but don’t expect to get what Cinderella or Sleepin’ Beauty got,” Othella advised. “Ain’t no charmin’ prince goin’ to come here to rescue us.” A sad look crossed her face, one she didn’t want Ruby to see. But she turned her head too late. Ruby saw it and it made her sad, too.
“You don’t think we’ll be happy in this place?” Ruby asked, shifting her suitcase from one hand to the other. She looked around some more, then back at Othella.
“I left home to get away from my prostitute mama, and look at me. I’m fixin’ to be one myself,” Othella said. There was such a hopeless look on her face, Ruby wanted to grab her hand and run. But she knew she couldn’t do that, at least not yet.
“We don’t have to do this, Othella. But you need to make up your mind and tell me what you want to do now.” Ruby still wanted to grab her friend’s hand and run.
“I still say it’s better than us livin’ on the streets, or in Ola Mae’s house. Only until we come up with somethin’ better though,” Othella answered with a weak smile. “Just one thing; no matter what happens, I hope to God you won’t do nothin’ crazy. . . .”
“Like what?” Ruby asked, both eyebrows raised. Othella responded with a blink. “Oh, you mean like what I done to that Glenn man? That couldn’t be helped, you know that. I won’t do nothin’ else crazy as long as nobody messes with me.”
Fifty-four-year-old Maureen O’Leary was the third of three daughters in a family of Irish-American dirt farmers. She had been living a shady life in New Orleans since the age of seventeen when her family moved to the United States from Dublin, Ireland. She had two ex-husbands and five estranged adult children somewhere in Ireland.
Throughout Maureen O ’Leary’s youth people—her relatives especially—had told her that she should have been a man. She was almost six feet tall, and as husky as a lumberjack. She kept her thick, but short, jet black hair slicked back like a duck, or hidden beneath a wig. She acted like a man, too. She smoked cigars, gambled, and fought and drank like an Irish sailor.
With work being so scarce for all women, black and white, Maureen had decided that if she was going to work, it had to be a job that was worth her time. Farming and any other type of mundane labor, which her ignorant father and her stupid ex-husbands had settled for, was out of the question. She was too ambitious to even consider such low-life endeavors. She wanted to live the good life and wear fancy frocks, drink good whiskey, eat lavish meals, and live in a beautiful, opulent house. That meant she either had to marry a wealthy man or make her own money by doing something on the shady side. She didn’t have the education or desire to do anything practical such as nursing or teaching, like her sisters. Not only were those jobs dull, but they didn’t pay enough money to suit her. The only women Maureen knew of who were making good money were the prostitutes, the madams, and women involved in other criminal activity. She had a female friend who smuggled drugs throughout the country for her gangster husband. When things got too slow in that business for the friend, she turned a few tricks on the side.
Unfortunately, Maureen had never enjoyed sex enough to make it her vocation. But she knew that a lot of other women did, and if they had enough alcohol or drugs in them, a good “adviser” could convince them to perform more tricks than a trained monkey.
Maureen knew that she had what it took to be a good madam. She had convinced herself that this line of work was her calling, after several of her lovers had put the idea in her head. That, and the fact that she had skills as good as any man’s when it came to manipulating women.
One of Maureen’s lovers, after her second divorce, was a man who frequently visited the brothels in New Orleans’ notorious red light District. He helped her find the house that she purchased for her new business venture. He also helped her hand pick her first stable of women, finding them everywhere from the bar room floors to the church pews. She was so charismatic and likeable, she became an immediate success. She was now the most beloved, most successful madam in the District.
Despite the war and thousands of people being out of work, business was booming in the brothels. Some men came alone, sneaking in and out like shy burglars. Some came in groups of three or four. One evening, a busload of rowdy sailors showed up, so horny they were willing to fuck each other if they couldn’t get to the women in time.
The men didn’t all come to have sex. Some came out of boredom, curiosity, and loneliness. The party atmosphere, the alcohol, and the scantily clad women were potent inducements.
An attractive but obese blue-eyed blond woman in her late twenties greeted Ruby and Othella when they knocked on Maureen’s front door. Like everybody else who had noticed them, she assumed they were maids. She shook her finger in their faces and scolded them for knocking on the front door when they
knew
that they needed to use the back door. She was stunned when Othella told her the reason they had come. But when Othella got to the part about Ruby’s role, the blonde still made Ruby go around the house and enter through the back door. To show her loyalty, Othella accompanied Ruby and entered through the back door, too.
Mazel Hawthorne was Maureen’s longtime cook and maid. She was a bitter middle-aged black woman with ordinary features on a face that almost always displayed a menacing scowl. There was a freshly starched red and white checked bandana tied around her head at all times, except when she went to bed or church. She let Ruby and Othella in, looking at them and their suitcases with contempt. She brusquely ordered them to wipe their feet on the doormat before entering.
Mazel was just as fat as the white woman who had refused to let Ruby and Othella enter through the front door. She wore face powder and some rouge, but it did her no good. She was still plain. Ruby was impressed to see that the white uniform that the Mazel woman wore looked expensive and new.
When Othella told Mazel that Maureen was expecting them, she glared at them, wondering what these two black crows were up to. She directed them to Maureen’s room by pointing the way with her finger, shaking her head as they marched across the floor like sneaky soldiers.
Mazel Hawthorne was an astute woman, especially when it involved other black folks. She had a keen sense of smell, and she had already sniffed BIG trouble brewing with these two newcomers.
CHAPTER 35
I
T WAS EARLY IN THE DAY AND THREE OF THE FOUR FULL
-time prostitutes who lived with Maureen were still in the bedrooms upstairs that they worked and slept in. The fat blonde was sprawled on a black velvet settee in the garishly decorated parlor with a cigarette dangling from her lip, sipping wine from a coffee cup. Brocade draperies with gold, green, and orange stripes covered every window. Large pictures of scantily clad women lined one wall. And as hard as it was to believe, on the opposite wall there was a large picture of Jesus in a lime green robe leading a flock of sheep.
“Mazel! Uhh, Mazel! Get your lazy tail upstairs and look in on them young’uns of mine. Then fix me a hot toddy and some grits!” the blond woman yelled toward the kitchen area.
Before Ruby and Othella could make their way to Maureen’s room, the mean-looking black woman who had let them in the back door stomped back through the parlor all the way up to the top of the stairs.
“I hope y’all here to help Mazel with my kids,” the blond woman said with a smile. “I’m Fanny. But call me Fat Fanny like everybody else calls me. And y’all can see why,” she laughed, slapping herself on her hip. She rose from the settee, which was a few feet to the side of a large shiny black upright piano. Crouching on the floor next to it was a life-size ceramic lion with eyes that looked almost real. Fat Fanny strolled over to Ruby and extended her hand and they shook. Othella shook the blonde’s hand, noticing how hot, clammy, and sticky it was. Being that they were in a whorehouse and this woman was a whore, she didn’t want to know where that hand had been.
“How many kids do you have, Fat Fanny?” Ruby asked, pleased to see that Fat Fanny was even larger than she herself was. Her face was average-looking, but probably would have been pretty without the three chins attached to her thick neck. One thing that Ruby firmly believed about large people was that they were more tolerant of other large people. If that was the case, she and this woman were going to get along just fine.
“Three, but don’t let that scare you none. The two oldest is seven and nine, and boys, so they’ll stay out of your way. They ain’t much trouble. I usually send ’em to my mama when we get real busy. But my baby, Viola, she’s just a few months old, so she needs a lot of attention. I like to keep her around me because my mama is too busy for me to leave Viola with her very often.”
Just then, Mazel returned to the parlor, holding the most beautiful little blond baby that Ruby had ever seen before in her life. She looked like the rosy-cheeked, blond, blue-eyed angels depicted on most of the religious periodicals and publications that her father shared with his congregation.
Ruby got misty-eyed just looking at little Viola, and Othella immediately noticed that. She tugged on Ruby’s jacket sleeve and led her on to Maureen’s bedroom.
Still clutching their suitcases, Ruby and Othella slowly entered Maureen’s boudoir, a large room that had once been the back part of what was now the parlor. They were dragging their feet like they were on the way to a guillotine. But there was no need for them to be nervous. Maureen lay on her side like a disabled dolphin, glassy-eyed, but eager to talk. First, she made small talk for a few minutes. She complained about how off key Maurice, her piano player, had been all week, but that he’d still raked in some hefty tips. She also laughingly complained about a gassy client who had stunk up the whole parlor so bad she had to have Al, her black maintenance man, spray the whole house with some pine-scented air freshener. This lighthearted conversation made Ruby and Othella feel so much at ease that they became relaxed, and were soon grinning like hyenas.
Maureen’s bedroom was just as gaudy as the parlor. On the wall facing the door was a large picture of Moses parting the Red Sea. There was a loud orange bedspread on her bed. The rest of the bedding—pink sheets, large pillows with pink pillowcases, and a red blanket—were half on the bed, half on the floor. A thick red liquid had been spilled on top of the bedspread, where Maureen had accidentally dropped a large glass of cranberry juice and rum the night before. The bed looked like a murder had occurred in it.
After a few more minutes of small talk, Maureen got down to business. “Othella, your mama was one of my best girls, but I had to let her go on account of she got too uppity too often with my gentlemen friends. She was nothin’ but an ignorant, backwoods Cajun, so I couldn’t have that,” Maureen declared.
Othella and Ruby stood by the side of the bed, tired and so groggy, all they wanted to do was get some sleep. Somehow, they managed not to yawn. Their feet were throbbing from the long walk from Ola Mae’s house to Maureen’s. And, they were hungry. They hadn’t eaten since noon the day before, but those discomforts were the least of their worries. Despite what this woman had told Othella earlier, she didn’t look too pleased to be talking to them now. As a matter of fact, she looked annoyed.
“Whorin’ ain’t easy, but it’s just a job, and somebody’s got to do it. Men are hornier than ever. And let me make one thing perfectly clear: come hell or high water, men will bend over backward to be with a good whore. If you don’t think you can please twelve, or even three or four men a night, this ain’t the job for you. Men are just like dogs and snakes, thank God. Next to food, water, and sleep, all it takes for them to stay alive is some kind of sexual gratification,” Maureen said with what appeared to be a sigh of relief. “I hope you realize that, Othella.”
“I do, Miss Mo’reen, honest to God I do. I know how weak men are, and I know what it takes to make ’em happy.” Othella gave a vigorous nod.
“Good! And I hope you know the power of the pussy. If your mama had been smarter, she’d be runnin’ her own house by now. When she left here and got herself involved with a Negro, and a
foreign
Negro from some heathen place in Africa—or was it one of them islands down yonder below Florida? Hmm. Anyway, that was the kiss of death for her.” Maureen waved her hand in disgust. “By the way, how is she doin’ these days?”
“She’s doin’ just fine, ma’am,” Othella muttered, almost biting her tongue. “She does all kinds of stuff.”
“I bet she does,” Maureen snickered. “She always did. . . .”
“And she still got what it takes to get
beaucoup
men to pay her to go to bed with ’em,” Ruby added, nudging Othella in her side with her elbow. “She got ’em comin’ and goin’, day and night.”
Maureen considered this information as she looked Ruby up and down. “I’m not surprised. She was the only one in the house who could swallow.”
Up to this point, Maureen had ignored Ruby. But when she finally turned to her, she gave her a warm smile and a nod. “And what was your name again, girl?” she asked Ruby. “Ruby, ain’t it?”
“Yessum. Othella told me that you told her that I could stay here, too, but that I don’t have to turn no tricks,” Ruby said with relief.
“Girl,
you
ain’t got nothin’ to worry about, as far as gettin’ pestered. My clients can be real persnickety when it comes to poontang and other female pleasures.” Maureen slowly looked Ruby up and down, her gaze landing on her face. “But you are still good for somethin’ around here. Hmm.” Maureen scratched her chin and gave Ruby a thoughtful look. “I can see that you like to eat. You can help Mazel in the kitchen with all of the meals. And I expect you to keep my chicken coops in the backyard clean as a whistle.”
Maureen paused and sat up in her bed. She removed a thimble from a jewelry box on her nightstand and dipped out a thumbnail of cocaine. She sniffed it and swooned like a woman in ecstasy, and she was. Other than money, there was nothing on earth that Maureen loved more than cocaine. For the next two minutes, she ignored her visitors. When she returned her attention to them, she seemed surprised that they were still in her room.
“What y’all standin’ here waitin’ on?” Maureen asked, rubbing her nose and sniffing so hard her eyes watered.
“Uh, is there anything else you want to talk about?” Othella asked in a nervous voice.
“Like what? Y’all here, ain’t you? I told you, you can both stay a spell,” Maureen snapped, looking even more annoyed. “What else is there for us to talk about?”
“Like money. Uh, like how much you can pay us,” Othella continued.
From the sour, impatient look on Maureen’s face, it was obvious that she did not like to discuss money, at least not with these two. “It all depends on what you do and who you do it to. Now you colored gals generally don’t bring in much money most of the time,” Maureen said.
“That’s why we colored gals are generally poor most of the time,” Ruby said quickly. Maureen’s jaw dropped. She looked at Ruby like she was looking at a creature from another planet. She didn’t like her looks, but she did like her spunk.
“Most of these suckers are really easy to please, Othella. Once you learn the ropes, you can get ’em off with a thorough blow job, a hand job, or even less. And if you get ’em drunk enough, you might not even have to go that far. Any questions ?” Maureen was still talking to Othella, but looking at Ruby. “Either one of y’all?”
Ruby nodded. “Yessum. Where do we sleep?” she asked, looking around the room.
“Once y’all leave this room, Othella, you go up to Fat Fanny. She’ll fix you up. You can share that room at the end of the hall with her. I was goin’ to put you in with Cat Fish, but she got a problem with Negroes.” Maureen paused and gave Othella an apologetic look. “Cat Fish’s use-to-be husband, and most of the men that she fools around with outside the house, are connected to the Klan. As a white woman, I have to respect that,” Maureen explained.
She paused again and turned to Ruby, giving her an apologetic look, too. “You, girl, you go to the right when you leave this room. Keep walkin’ until you get to a green door right next to the door leadin’ into the kitchen—which is a royal mess, so it’s a good thing you got here when you did. You can help that Mazel spruce it up. That’ll be her room before you reach the kitchen. And don’t let her scare you. She’s as big and black as a grizzly, but she’s as tame as a kitty cat once you get to know her. There’s a roll-away bed in her room, and you and her can share it.” Maureen shook her head. “You and her are both a little on the heavy side, so that bed will be kind of crowded. But don’t worry. As long as you sleep on your side, you won’t roll off and end up on the floor with a splinter in your jaw like that last gal I had helpin’ Mazel out.”
Another damn roll-away bed! Ruby groaned, but she did it under her breath. This Maureen woman was her last hope in this wretched town, so she didn’t want to upset her. Ruby had already decided that if things didn’t work out with her, she was going to hightail it back to Shreveport, lickety-split.
“A big, young, strappin’ girl like you, you might have to help Al do a few other jobs around the house. All of my girls got kids, but Fat Fanny’s is the only ones here. You can give Mazel some mammy assistance. Matter of fact, Fat Fanny just birthed a beautiful baby girl a few months ago. You got here just in time, so you can bond with that sweet little thing—that’s if you like babies.”
Maureen’s last two sentences were music to Ruby’s ears. “Oh yessum!” she squealed. “I
love
babies, and especially girl babies! I seen Fat Fanny’s baby when we was on our way to your room. When can I start takin’ care of that sweet baby?” Ruby’s response was so loud and quick, Othella shuddered. She knew that Ruby had not gotten over giving up her baby girl and probably never would. At least she would have a substitute for as long as they remained in Maureen’s house.
Othella did not like the idea of Ruby nursing and fussing over that woman’s baby. However, from the look on Ruby’s face, Othella knew that as long as she could do that, she’d be happy.
And part of the plan was to
keep
Ruby happy, Othella reminded herself.