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Domestic servitude was not what I desired for myself, but she had only to speak and I would do anything she asked.
Mama, you promised Mr. Pace that you would let me go to school one more year. You promised me the ninth grade. You promised! Mr. Pace thinks I’m smart. Please, Mama, let me go to school!
I loved her with all my heart, but if she did not die by Monday morning, I was determined to discover from the pages of my schoolbooks, how to break the chains that bound me to my mother.
“No, I don’t want you to go get Pearl, ”Mama snapped. “I want you to get outta my sight, Tara. How the hell you gon’ go get Pearl when she at work way up there on Meadow Hill. I swear, I got the dumbest children in the world. Sometimes I wonder if all y’all belong to me.”
Ouch. Thats how a mother talks to her precious babies?!
I wondered, too. Sometimes I even prayed there had been a mistake, and that somebody would come along, take my hand, and say, “Rozelle Quinn, I believe this child belongs to me.” Mama would push me into the arms of the stranger and say, “You’re right. I knew all along that she was your child, but I loved her so I just couldn’t bear to let her go. You take her, though, because she rightfully belongs to you.” I would go off to my new home where there would be a bed from the Griggs Furniture Store, a dress for every day of the week, a change of underpants, and two pairs of shoes with good
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My hearttt! Ughhhh
during the summer, I sat out on the porch, or in the woods behind the house, and read until God dimmed His lights and called it a day.
Martha Jean’s most profound lesson had been learned through a curriculum of intimidation and pain. In fact, we had all been students in that classroom with our mother as our teacher. Although I had been only six at the time, and Martha Jean barely seven, it was a day that we were not likely to forget.
INCREDIBLY SAD
In less than five minutes our mother had taught us to never touch her metal box, and the true meaning of fear. I wondered that day if I was the only one in the room who knew that there was something terribly wrong with our mother.
The Negroes in our town seldom went to Barley, and we called Rockside “white man’s row” because we had very little use for the street. We were denied entrance to the library, we could not drink from the fountain or sit in the gazebo at the courthouse, and very few of us could afford to deposit funds at the bank, nor were we welcome to do so.
Probably the only person who did not know he was colored was our mother. She took pleasure in categorizing her children by race. Mushy, Harvey, Sam, and Martha Jean were her white children. Tarabelle, Wallace, and Laura were Indians—Cherokee, no less. Edna and I were Negroes.
I liked listening to Junior. He had completed two years of college, and our principal, Mr.Hewitt, sometimes called him in to teach when one of the regular teachers was absent. Sometimes Junior talked about earning enough money to go back to college, but mostly he talked about the plight of the Negro. Junior was a lanky young man with a dark complexion like mine, and one day he had told our class that life was hard for Negroes, but harder for those his color.
“Tan, do you ever wish you’d been born in another family? I mean . . . like Shaky Brown’s, or somebody like that.You know, where you don’t have to worry ’bout things so much.”
Reverend Nelson had brought God into our house, and Mama was deathly afraid of God. She was so afraid, in fact, that she would not go near a church. She sent us, instead, to collect her blessings and bring them home. I think she had convinced herself that God could not see her evil deeds if she did not go near His house. I
She did not look at Sam. She took two awkward steps toward the stove as her tongue sank beneath her lower lip, and then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she spat a mixture of saliva and snuff right onto the belly of the stove. “Yo’ mama can’t be helped,” she said. “Ain’t nobody in the world can help yo’mama.” With that, she turned her back to us and left our house. The gob of snuff sizzled in her wake and became a permanent stain on the stove. For some reason, I felt it was a stain on me as well. That stain, scorching into the iron, held me captivated as
Had they been just a bit more subdued, they might have heard what I heard as Tarabelle turned to leave the kitchen. “It feels like pee,” she mumbled.
Alarming and sad
“Come on, Tara,” I pleaded, “I missed school on Friday.Mr. Pace is gonna be upset with me.” “So?” she asked, moving in to stand nose to nose with me.“Who you think you are? You think ’cause you can read a little bit better than the rest of us that it makes you special or something? You ain’t special, Tangy.
I round the bend, running from Fife Street to Penyon Road, and I see my mother. She is standing on the front porch, staring down past the field and directly at me. She turns her back and opens the front door. I think she is going inside, deserting me in the presence of my enemies, and I scream for her again. “Mama! Mama!” Martha Jean and Tarabelle emerge from the house. My mother rushes them toward the road, and they obey. My warriors charge the battlefield without armor, attacking my predators, pulling clothes, and hair, and skin, drawing blood and screams of terror, as I fall to the dirt,
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“You gotta fight. Don’t take nothing but swinging yo’ fist.You understand that?” “Yes, ma’am.” “I’m gon’ make sho’ you understand it,” she says, loosening her grip on my thighs.“Hand me that poker and hold her feet, Tarabelle.” Tarabelle clamps down on my feet, immobilizing me.There is no time to cry out as my mother brings the searing fire iron down onto my leg. I swoon from the pain, and my mother’s voice trails me as I enter into a darkness that is death and float deeper still into Hell. “I done branded you a Quinn, girl. Don’t you ever run from nobody else long as you live.”
Sometimes when I am most afraid, I touch my scar to remind myself that I am not a coward. I am a Quinn.
“A girl my age is called a woman,” he countered, “and that’s just what Martha Jean is—a woman.”
Velman seems sweet but idk what his intentions are. And isnt Martha Jean about 14? That aint no woman!!! I forget his age though...
“The best way to get them is through education,” Junior countered. “What good are laws that cannot be read or understood, or a tongue that spews only hatred and ignorance? What good is the written word to an illiterate man?”
“I guess I believe in education as a weapon in our fight. That’s why I walk those roads out through the country every week. I want to help people learn to read and write. I know knives and guns are not the answer. Once we get a fight like that started, who will have the power to stop it? How many deaths will be enough?”
Wow i like junior'smindset
Their voices grew louder as they divided over the issue of fight or flight. I allowed myself a yawn, more from sleepiness than boredom. I was not bored; I was waiting to hear what they intended to do.
Tangy. What a curious little girl. Its admirable in some ways
Education ain’t nothing but words, man.We gotta show ’em that we mean business.” “Yeah,” Andy agreed. “I’m all for that.” “I’m with you, too, Sam,” Junior said, “but you have to know what you want, what you’re trying to accomplish, before you make a move.” “Okay,” Sam consented. “I want what everybody else want. I want a job. I wanna drink from that fountain down at the courthouse. I want Andy to be a sheriff if that’s what he wanna be. I’m tired of being on the back end of things like I just don’t count. I wanna be able to move my mama outta this house, move her to East Grove or Meadow Hill.
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glancing back, Mama said, “Tarabelle, get in the car.” “Mama, please . . .” “Get yo’ goddamn ass in this car, now!” Mama ordered, and Tarabelle jerked from the force of the command. Her body seemed to convulse in a series of twitching motions before she stiffened her back and walked down to the car, her head high, her eyes staring straight ahead, and her face resembling chiseled stone.
Im beginning to understand Tarabelle's cold demeanor...she seems like a victim of some sort. Remember shes 16
“Her name is Judy,” she said, as the driver shifted gears and the car sped off. The bag Harlell had given me contained a blanket, four diapers, a card with two safety pins attached and two missing, two cans of Carnation milk, and a bottle of Karo syrup. I gave the bag to Laura and, without a coat or a clue, went in search of my brothers to warn them that our mother had been home, but I couldn’t find them.
She settled down, and I listened as her soft breathing changed to muffled sobs. In the distance, over on Fife or Canyon Street, someone’s dog grieved with my sister. When it seemed she would never stop, I tossed my blanket aside and stretched a hand across the inches that separated us.Tarabelle’s back shuddered beneath my palm, but she did not pull away. I moved closer until I was sitting next to her. She raised her head and settled it on my lap, and I stroked her hair as tears rolled down my cheeks.
“The one thang we ain’t is po’, and the one thang we ain’t never gon’ be is niggers.”
he leaned toward me and said, matter-of-factly, “You’re the smart one
Mushy took another swig from the Mason jar and glanced back at us. “All y’all gon’ be here the rest of yo’ life,” she said. “Mama gon’ keep y’all here making you be whatever she wants you to be, long as you bring money in this house. She tried to keep me here, but I musta took after my daddy, whoever he is, God bless him. Mama had me screwing in every hayloft, field, and back room she could find. I never even knew what I was worth. One day I thought, screw you, Mama. I went out on my own and screwed my way right on outta Georgia.”
Junior turned and momentarily studied the road he had traveled.“ People live out through there,” he said. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? But there’re colored people living out there, Mushy. The houses are so many miles apart that the people seldom visit each other, and they don’t come into town that often. About six miles to the first house, three to the next. I go out once a week to let them know what’s going on in the world.”
“What you mean by that, Mr. Frank?” Sam asked. “That’s my mama you talking to.”
I lowered myself to the footstool and changed Judy’s diaper, then I turned her on my lap where her head was resting against my knees so that I could gaze at her face. Sometimes I would gently squeeze the tip of her nose, trying to shape a point out of flatness. Miss Pearl had said that a baby’s head and nose could be shaped if it was done early enough, before the bones formed. She had also said that the color of the baby’s ears determined the color of the child. Judy was going to be black, maybe even a darker shade of black than I was.
I thought she wasgoing to say that she was gonna give her a squeeze in the form of a hug, affection. No. Perpetuated self hate passed down
“I try to tell ’em, Pearl,” Mama agreed, “but you can’t tell ’em nothing.They think that child a doll.” “She is a doll,” Mushy said.
“I’m not going to school today,” I said.“I want to be here when you leave.” “What’s Mama gon’ say?” It was my turn to laugh. “Mama doesn’t care whether I go or not. She thinks I’m too old to go to school.”
“Same difference,”
They used this phrase back then? Why am i shocked by this
It was a large area that served as an auditorium by placement of folding chairs, a gymnasium by removal of folding chairs, and a lunchroom when the weather kept us indoors.
St John grammar school days...ugh
“I ain’t going back to school next year,” she informed me as we reached the corner of her street and turned onto Lawson Street. “Daddy say I ain’t got to, but Mama want me to go. I’m sick of school.” “What will you do if you quit?” I asked. “I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders.“Get a job or something, I guess.” “I don’t want you to quit, Mattie. I want us to graduate together.” She laughed. “What make you think you gon’ graduate? I thought you said yo’ mama was gon’ make you quit.” “I’ll find a way to go,” I said, and was surprised by the bitterness in my voice, and the anger I suddenly
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“Did you say you kicked your mother?” I asked incredulously. “Mattie, you kicked your mother?”
“Yeah, I kicked her, and it wadn’t the first time. I told you I was sorry after I done it, but she makes me sick. If she gon’ say all them things to Daddy, she oughta be ready to fight, but she won’t even hit back.”
“Then I’m glad your daddy hit her,” I said angrily. “I hate your mother.” I didn’t truly hate Miss Lucille, but I had said it, and it was too late to take it back. I dropped my books to the ground and stepped back, keeping my gaze on Mattie. I assumed the stance that Tarabelle always took when she boxed with Sam, and I brought my fists up, ready to jab. Mattie stared at me, then she grunted.“I ain’t fixin’ to fight you, Tangy. I hate her, too. Leastways, I hate her most of the time.” She resumed walking, glancing back at me several times, waiting for me to catch up. I snatched my books from
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W t heckkk
“You slut!” Mama screamed.“You goddamn slut! I’ll teach you to go out and shame me.” Martha Jean backed into the front room, giving Mama ample space to direct her punches. She aimed for Martha Jean’s head. Martha Jean threw an arm up to protect herself, but Mama gripped it brutally and forced it behind Martha Jean’s back. Martha Jean brayed, and arched her spine against the pressure Mama exerted on her shoulder and arm. Effortlessly, Mama wrapped her other arm around Martha Jean’s neck and breathed into her ear, “Dumb bitch.You no-good, dumb bitch. I’ll break yo’ goddamn neck.” I stood there
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Sad sad sad disturbing. How could a mother dl such great harm to her children? This was an evil,abusive woman. A devil
“Well, I gotta finish getting dressed.Tarabelle, you get yo’self together.You gotta make a run wit’ me tonight.” “No, Mama, ”Tarabelle begged. “Please! I’m tired.” God, look down on us. I am in a room where your daughters are weary. They are moaning, and it is a most wretched sound. Can you hear it, Lord? Do something! I never want to shed another tear as long as I live. “I’ll go with you, Mama,” I heard myself say, although I had no idea where my mother was going.“I’m not tired. I’ll go with you.” In a split second, my mother was across the room and standing over me. I spread my arms to
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Not only is she physically abusive but also mentally. Not only that but she FORCES her daughter into dangerous, sexual situations . She basically sexually exploits, trafficks or pimps her own daughter out! SICK
I took coffee in to Mama, then I fed and changed Judy, got Laura and Edna dressed and fed, and managed to get a few spoonsful of food between Martha Jean’s swollen lips.
I was baffled by the ambiguities of my mother’s emotions and behavior. She denied and feared God in the same breath. She allowed our actions to shame her, and yet she was void of shame. I truly believed there was something unnatural about her—a madness that only her children could see. My yearning was not to understand it, but to escape it.
With Judy cradled in my arms, I went out to the kitchen. Mama was sitting on a chair, her feet tucked beneath the seat, and an elbow resting on the tabletop. A foul odor—the combination of sweat, caffeine, and booze—emanated from her body and scalp. She reached out to touch me, but recoiled when she saw that I was holding the baby.
“What happened to the dummy?” she asked. “What happened to her? Did she fall down the steps or something?” I accepted my cue.“Yes, ma’am,” I lied.“She fell down the front steps.” “Did you see it?” “Yes, ma’am.” “Who else saw it?” “We all saw it. I tried to break her fall, but I couldn’t. Harvey went down and picked her up and brought her in the house.We all saw her fall, Mama, but there was nothing we could do.” Mama nodded.“Okay. I ain’t blaming you.Y’all just gon’ have to be more careful on them steps.”
W T F!!!!!!!! Is going on here
My anger had dissolved; I felt cheated and confused. I ached for the comfort that Velman had offered Martha Jean. She was visibly bruised;my wounds were deeply buried in my soul. No one knew about them. I truly believed Velman would try to help Martha Jean escape our mother’s house, but escape was what I desired for myself, as well. I wanted him to love her, but I realized that I wanted him to love me, too.
“Shit!” he cried out. “Shit!” He stepped back, and I was free. I turned slowly to see Hambone and Tarabelle facing each other.Hambone had one arm raised between his shoulder blades, rubbing his back. “Why’d you hit me, Tarabelle?” he asked angrily. “You almost broke my damn back.” Tarabelle dropped the milk crate she had used on him, and took a seat at the table.“That’s my sister, boy,” she said matter-of-factly. There was neither surprise nor anger in her voice. She spoke as if she had walked in to find me stirring grits at the stove, or something else just as mundane. “You hit me with that
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First time i see some form or expression of love/care towards her sister/Tangy. Usually shes just cold, void of outward feelinbs, jaded.perhaps?
“What happened?” she asked.“What’s wrong wit’ you?” I blurted out the embarrassing details of my experience with Hambone, honestly believing that if I shared it I would feel better. I even told her how I had been afraid to call out for my mother. Mattie listened, staring down at the ground, and occasionally shaking her head. When I was done, she said, “I told you a long time ago.They can smell the scent when we women.You just lucky nobody ain’t came after you sooner than this.They be looking for somewhere to stick they tails.Yo’ brothers do it, too.All men do the nasty. They sniff out girls
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I am speechless. Was this considered acceptable and normal during that era?! This so wrong, scary and heartbreaking!
