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  “Just Don’t Never Give Up on Love”

  Feeling tired that day, I came to the park with the children. I saw her as I rounded the corner, sitting old as stale beer on the bench, ruminating on some uneventful past. And I thought, “Hell. No rap from the roots today. I need the present. On this day. This Monday. This July day buckling me under her summer wings, I need more than old words for my body to squeeze into.”

  I sat down at the far end of the bench, draping my legs over the edge, baring my back to time and time unwell spent. I screamed to the children to watch those curves threatening their youth as they rode their 10-speed bikes against midwestern rhythms.

  I opened my book and began to write. They were coming again, those words insistent as his hands had been, pounding inside me, demanding their time and place. I relaxed as my hands moved across the paper like one possessed.

  I wasn’t sure just what it was I heard. At first I thought it was one of the boys calling me so I kept on writing. They knew the routine by now. Emergencies demanded a presence. A facial confrontation. No long-distance screams across trees and space and other children’s screams. But the sound pierced the pages and I looked around, and there she was inching her bamboo-creased body toward my back, coughing a beaded sentence off her tongue.

  “Guess you think I ain’t never loved, huh girl? Hee. Hee. Guess that what you be thinking, huh?”

  I turned. Startled by her closeness and impropriety, I stuttered, “I, I, I, whhhaat dooooo you mean?”

  “Hee. Hee. Guess you think I been old like this fo’ever, huh?” She leaned toward me, “Huh? I was so pretty that mens brought me breakfast in bed. Wouldn’t let me hardly do no work at all.”

  “That’s nice ma’am. I’m glad to hear that.” I returned to my book. I didn’t want to hear about some ancient love that she carried inside her. I had to finish a review for the journal. I was already late. I hoped she would get the hint and just sit still. I looked at her out of the corner of my eyes.

  “He could barely keep hisself in changing clothes. But he was pretty. My first husband looked like the sun. I used to say his name over and over again ‘til it hung from my ears like diamonds. Has you ever loved a pretty man, girl?”

  I raised my eyes, determined to keep a distance from this woman disturbing my day.

  “No ma’am. But I’ve seen many a pretty man. I don’t like them though cuz they keep their love up high in a linen closet and I’m too short to reach it.”

  Her skin shook with laughter.

  “Girl you gots some spunk about you after all. C’mon over here next to me. I wants to see yo’ eyes up close. You looks so uneven sittin’ over there.”

  Did she say uneven? Did this old buddha splintering death say uneven? Couldn’t she see that I had one eye shorter than the other; that my breath was painted on porcelain; that one breast crocheted keloids under this white blouse?

  I moved toward her though. I scooped up the years that had stripped me to the waist and moved toward her. And she called to me to come out, come out wherever you are young woman, playing hide and go seek with scarecrow men. I gathered myself up at the gateway of her confessionals.

  “Do you know what it mean to love a pretty man, girl?” She crooned in my ear. “You always running behind a man like that girl while he cradles his privates. Ain’t no joy in a pretty yellow man, cuz he always out pleasurin’ and givin’ pleasure.”

  I nodded my head as her words sailed in my ears. Here was the pulse of a woman whose black ass shook the world once.

  She continued. “A woman crying all the time is pitiful. Pitiful I says. I wuz pitiful sitting by the window every night like a cow in the fields chewin’ on cud. I wanted to cry out, but not even God hisself could hear me. I tried to cry out til my mouth wuz split open at the throat. I ’spoze there is a time all womens has to visit the slaughter house. My visit lasted five years.”

  Touching her hands, I felt the summer splintering in prayer; touching her hands, I felt my bones migrating in red noise. I asked, “When did you see the butterflies again?”

  Her eyes wandered like quicksand over my face. Then she smiled, “Girl don’t you know yet that you don’t never give up on love? Don’t you know you has in you the pulse of winds? The noise of dragonflies?” Her eyes squinted close and she said, “One of them mornings he woke up callin’ me and I wuz gone. I wuz gone running with the moon over my shoulders. I looked no which way at all. I had inside me ’nough knives and spoons to cut/scoop out the night. I wuz a-tremblin’ as I met the morning’.”

  She stirred in her 84-year-old memory. She stirred up her body as she talked. “They’s men and mens. Some good. Some bad. Some breathing death. Some breathing life. William wuz my beginnin’. I come to my second husband spittin’ metal and he just pick me up and fold me inside him. I wuz christen’ with his love.”

  She began to hum. I didn’t recognize the song; it was a prayer. I leaned back and listened to her voice rustling like silk. I heard cathedrals and sonnets; I heard tents and revivals and a black woman spilling black juice among her ruins.

  “We all gotta salute death one time or ’nother girl. Death be waitin’ outdoors trying to get inside. William died at his job. Death just turned ’round and snatched him right off the street.”

  Her humming became the only sound in the park. Her voice moved across the bench like a mutilated child. And I cried. For myself. For this woman talkin’ about love. For all the women who have ever stretched their bodies out anticipating civilization and finding ruins.

  The crashing of the bikes was anticlimactic. I jumped up, rushed toward the accident. Man. Little man. Where you bicycling to so very fast? Man. Second little man. Take it slow. It all passes so fast anyhow.

  As I walked the boys and their bikes toward the bench, I smiled at this old woman waiting for our return.

  “I want you to meet a great lady, boys.”

  “Is she a writer, too, ma?”

  “No honey. She’s a lady who has lived life instead of writing about it.”

  “After we say hello can we ride a little while longer? Please!”

  “Ok. But watch your manners now and your bones afterwards.”

  “These are my sons, Ma’am.”

  “How you do sons? I’m Mrs. Rosalie Johnson. Glad to meet you.”

  The boys shook her hand and listened for a minute to her words. Then they rode off, spinning their wheels on a city neutral with pain.

  As I stood watching them race the morning, Mrs. Johnson got up.

  “Don’t go,” I cried. “You didn’t finish your story.”

  “We’ll talk by-and-by. I comes out here almost every day. I sits here on the same bench every day. I’ll probably die sittin’ here one day. As good a place as any I ’magine.”

  “May I hug you ma’am? You’ve helped me so much today. You’ve given me strength to keep on looking.”

  “No. Don’t never go looking for love girl. Just wait. It’ll come. Like the rain fallin’ from the heaven, it’ll come. Just don’t never give up on love.”

  We hugged; then she walked her 84-year-old walk down the street. A black woman. Echoing gold. Carrying couplets from the sky to crease the ground.

  Ballad

  (after the Spanish)

  forgive me if i laugh

  you are so sure of love

  you are so young

  and i too old to learn of love.

  the rain exploding

  in the air is love

  the grass excreting her

  green wax is love

  and stones remembering

  past steps is love,

  but you. you are too young

  for love

  and i too old.

  once. what does it matter

  when or who, i knew

  of love.

  i fixed my body

  under his and went

  to sleep in love

  all trace of me

  was wiped away

  f
orgive me if i smile

  young heiress of a naked dream

  you are so young

  and i too old to learn to love.

  After Saturday Night Comes Sunday

  It had all started at the bank. She wuzn’t sure, but she thot it had. At that crowded bank where she had gone to clear up the mistaken notion that she wuz $300.00 overdrawn in her checking account.

  Sandy had moved into that undersized/low expectation of niggahs/being able to save anything bank/meanly. She wuz tired of people charging her fo they own mistakes. She had seen it wid her own eyes, five checks: four fo $50 the other one fo $100 made out to an Anthony Smith. It wuz Winston’s signature. Her stomach jumped as she added and re-added the figures. Finally she dropped the pen and looked up at the business/suited/man sitten across from her wid crossed legs and eyes. And as she called him faggot in her mind, watermelon tears gathered round her big eyes and she just sat.

  Someone had come for her at the bank. A friend of Winston’s helped her to his car. It wuz the wite/dude who followed Winston constantly wid his eyes. Begging eyes she had once called em, half in jest, half seriously. They wuz begging now, along wid his mouth, begging Sandy to talk. But she cudn’t. The words had gone away, gotten lost, drowned by the warm/april/rain dropping in on her as she watched the car move down the long/unbending/street. It was her first Spring in Indianapolis. She wondered if it wud be beautiful.

  He wuz holding her. Crying in her ear. Loud cries, almost louder than the noise already turning in her head. Yeh. He sed between the cries that he had messed up the money. He had . . . he had . . . oh babee. C’mon Sandy and talk. Talk to me. Help me, babee. Help me to tell you what I got to tell you for both our sakes. He stretched her out on the green/oversized/couch that sat out from the wall like some displaced trailer waiting to be parked.

  I’m hooked, he sed. I’m hooked again on stuff. It’s not like befo though when I wuz 17 and just beginning. This time it’s different. I mean it has to do now wid me and all my friends who are still on junk. You see I got out of the joint and looked around and saw those brothers who are my friends all still on the stuff and I cried inside. I cried long tears for some beautiful dudes who didn’t know how the man had ’em by they balls. Baby I felt so sorry for them and they wuz so turned around that one day over to Tony’s crib I got high wid ’em. That’s all babee. I know I shouldn’t have done that. You and the kids and all. But they wuz dudes I wuz in the joint wid. My brothers who wuz still unaware. I can git clean, babee. I mean, I don’t have a long jones. I ain’t been on it too long. I can kick now. Tomorrow. You just say it. Give me the word/sign that you understand, forgive me for being one big asshole and I’ll start kicking tomorrow. For you babee. I know I been laying some heavy stuff on you. Spending money we ain’t even got—I’ll git a job too next week—staying out all the time. Hitting you fo telling me the truth ’bout myself. My actions. Babee, it’s you I love in spite of my crazy actions. It’s you I love. Don’t nobody else mean to me what you do. It’s just that I been acting crazy but I know I can’t keep on keepin’ on this way and keep you and the children. Give me a whole lot of slack during this time and I can kick it, babee. I love you. You so good to me. The meanest thing that done ever happened to me. You the best thing that ever happened to me in all of my 38 years and I’ll take better care of you. Say something Sandy. Say you understand it all. Say you forgive me. At least that, babee.

  He raised her head from the couch and kissed her. It was a short cooling kiss. Not warm. Not long. A binding kiss. She opened her eyes and looked at him, and the bare room that somehow now complemented their lives, and she started to cry again. And as he grabbed her and rocked her, she spoke fo the first time since she had told that wite/collar/man in the bank that the bank was wrong.

  The-the-the-the bab-bab-bab-ies. Ar-ar-ar-are th-th-th-they o-o-okay? Oh my god. I’m stuttering. Stuttering, she thot. Just like when I wuz little. Stop talking. Stop talking girl. Write what you have to say. Just like you used to when you wuz little and you got tired of people staring at you while you pushed words out of an unaccommodating mouth. Yeh. That was it, she thot. Stop talking and write what you have to say. Nod yo/head to all of this madness. But rest yo/head and use yo/hands till you git it all straight again.

  She pointed to her bag and he handed it to her. She took out a pen and notebook and wrote that she wuz tired, that her head hurt and wuz spinning, and that she wanted to sleep fo awhile. She turned and held his face full of little sores where he had picked fo ingrown hairs the nite befo. She kissed them and let her tongue move over his lips, wetting them. He smiled at her and sed he wud git her a coupla sleeping pills. He wud also pick up some dollies fo himself cuz Saturday was kicking time fo him. As he went out the door he turned and sed, Lady, you some lady. I’m a lucky M.F. to have found you. She watched him from the window and the sun hit the gold of his dashiki and made it bleed yellow raindrops.

  She must have dozed. She knew it wuz late. It was dark outside. The room was dark also and she wondered if he had come in and gone upstairs where the children were napping. What a long nap the boys were taking. They wud be up all nite tonite if they didn’t wake up soon. Maybe she shud wake them up, but she decided against it. Her body wuz still tired and she heard footsteps on the porch.

  His voice was light and cracked a little as he explained his delay. He wuz high. She knew it. He sounded like he sounded on the phone when he called her late in the nite from some loud place and complimented her fo understanding his late hours. She hadn’t understood them, she just hated to be a complaining bitch. He had no sleeping pills, but he had gotten her something as good. A morphine tablet. She watched his face as he explained that she cud swallow it or pop it into the skin. He sed it worked better if you stuck it in yo/arm. As he took the tablet out of the cellophane paper of his cigarettes, she closed her eyes and fo a moment, she thot she heard someone crying outside the house. She opened her eyes.

  His body hung loose as he knelt by the couch. He took from his pocket a manila envelope. It had little spots of blood on it and as he undid the rubber hands, she saw two needles, a black top wid two pieces of dirty, wite cotton balls in it. She knew this wuz what he used to git high wid.

  I-I-I-I-I don-don-don-don’t wa-wa-want none o-o-o-of that stuff, ma-a-a-a-a-n. Ain’t th-th-th-that do-do-do-dope, too? I-I-I-I-I just just just just wa-wa-wa-nnnt-ted to sleep. I’m o-o-o-kay now. She picked up her notebook and pen and started to write again.

  I slept while you wuz gone, man. I drifted on off as I looked for you to walk up the steps. I don’t want that stuff. Give me a cold beer though, if there’s any in the house. I’ll drink that. But no stuff man, she wrote. I’m yo/woman. You shudn’t be giving me any of that stuff. Throw the pill away. We don’t need it. You don’t need it any mo. You gon kick and we gon move on. Keep on being baddDDD togetha. I’ll help you, man, cuz I know you want to kick. Flush it down the toilet! You’ll start kicking tomorrow and I’ll get a babysitter and take us fo a long drive in the country and we’ll move on the grass and make it move wid us, cuz we’ll be full of living/alive/thots and we’ll stop and make love in the middle of nowhere, and the grass will stop its wintry/brown/chants and become green as our Black bodies sing. Heave. Love each other. Throw that stuff away, man, cuz we got more important/beautiful/things to do.

  As he read the note his eyes looked at hers in a half/clear/way and he got up and walked slowly to the john. She heard the toilet flushing and she heard the refrigerator door open and close. He brought two cold beers and, as she opened hers, she sat up to watch him rock back and forth in the rocking chair. And his eyes became small and sad as he sed, half jokingly, Hope I don’t regret throwing that stuff in the toilet, and he leaned back and smiled sadly as he drank his beer. She turned the beer can up to her lips and let the cold evening foam wet her mouth and drown the gathering stutters of her mind.

  The sound of cries from the second floor made her move. As she climbed the stairs she waved to him.
But his eyes were still closed. He wuz somewhere else, not in this house she thot. He wuz somewhere else, floating among past dreams she had never seen or heard him talk about. As she climbed the stairs, the boys’ screams grew louder. Wow. Them boys got some strong lungs, she thot. And smiled.

  It wuz 11:30 and she had just put the boys in their cribs. She heard them sucking on their bottles, working hard at nourishing themselves. She knew the youngest twin wud finish his bottle first and cry out fo more milk befo he slept. She laughed out loud. He sho cud grease.

  He wuz in the bathroom. She knocked on the door, but he sed for her not to come in. She stood outside the door, not moving, and knocked again. Go and turn on the TV, he sed, I’ll be out in a few minutes.

  It wuz 30 minutes later when he came out. His walk wuz much faster than befo and his voice wuz high, higher than the fear moving over her body. She ran to him, threw her body against him and held on. She kissed him hard and moved her body ’gainst him til he stopped and paid attention to her movements. They fell to the floor. She felt his weight on her as she moved and kissed him. She wuz feeling good and she cudn’t understand why he stopped. In the midst of pulling off her dress he stopped and took out a cigarette and lit it while she undressed to her bra and panties. She felt naked all of a sudden and sat down and drew her legs up against her chest and closed her eyes. She reached for a cigarette and lit it.

  He stretched out next to her. She felt very ashamed, as if she had made him do something wrong. She wuz glad that she cudn’t talk cuz that way she didn’t have to explain. He ran his hand up and down her legs and touched her soft wet places.

  It’s just, babee, that this stuff kills any desire for THAT! I mean, I want you and all that but I can’t quite git it up to perform. He lit another cigarette and sat up. Babee, you sho know how to pick ’em. I mean, wuz you born under an unlucky star or sumthin’? First, you had a nigguh who preferred a rich/wite/woman to you and Blackness. Now you have a junkie who can’t even satisfy you when you need satisfying. And his laugh wuz harsh as he sed again, You sho know how to pick ’em, lady. She didn’t know what else to do so she smiled a nervous smile that made her feel, remember times when she wuz little and she had stuttered thru a sentence and the listener had acknowledged her accomplishment wid a smile and all she cud do was smile back.