She hadn't wanted a woman boarder, and maybe this was why—or maybe there were other things men did and didn't do.
But this young woman of twenty years age came to her Victorian row house in Northwest D.C. with nowhere else to go. What could she do? Lord knows what this child has been through that she had to come here, alone and kind of sorrowful. People who haven't been through much are always in the here and now—but the object of this girl's eyes wasn't always the thing she seemed to be looking at, and the purpose of her hands wasn't always the thing she seemed to be doing. So what could she have been through?
"I miss my baby," my mother said.
"Crying over some man? Girl, don't even start. Crying over a man, humph. He ought to be crying over you."
"No, you misunderstand. I mean my baby— my little girl."
"Ohh Lord. A baby. You've got a baby? A little girl?"
Margaret rolled her eyes and thought more women in this world. More women in my house. I didn't want this.
"Well, don't sit around crying. Go get her."
That was the beginning of my stay with Margaret and DeeDee, who became my godparents. That stay was at times sweet, at times violent and always full of huge, nebulous people.
When my father came around to see me, Margaret refused to let him in the house. I don’t know why. Perhaps she felt threatened. Here was this strange Black man. In his face, she could see my eyes, my mouth. In his aura, she could see the flesh and the blood to whom I really belonged so she held me back like a purloined princess. Perhaps because my parents were not married she saw my father as the bad guy and wanted to protect me.
"Hell naw!" she yelled. "You say her mama said you could do what? I ain't heard nothing about it. I don't care who you are. You get your black ass away from my house 'fore I get my pistol."
The pistol must not have been very far because next thing she was firing at his feet.
He didn't run. Rage erases fear and he was angry now.
"I come to see my daughter and you gone shoot at me? Are you crazy? Woman, I will burn your little raggedy house down."
He was proud and angry— full of truth. That's my daughter.
"You hear what that bastard said?"
Margaret was incredulous. She spun toward the door with raised eyebrows and slitted eyes for anyone and everyone who was listening.
"He's going to burn my house down. I'd like to see you try it. And I know one thing, you burn my house, you sure as hell won't burn nothing else."
DeeDee would fecklessly call his wife to reason and passivity. "Noow, Baby Doooooll."
"Naw, this nigger wants to burn my house down. Go on. I dare you. In fact, I'll get the matches. You gone burn my house down? I will get the matches."
That's not the way a woman is supposed to react to such a horrific threat— not in 1965, but that was Margaret. She kept a loaded pistol with a white pearl handle in her pocketbook. When a mugger stuck a gun in her car window at a traffic light, she rolled the window up on his arm and drove to the police station with him doing his best to keep up with the car. But Margaret was not a loud-mouthed woman and never was she uncouth in her carriage. She was elegant and graceful but with a southern sharpness that was always ready with a come back. And she gave me glimpses of her childhood.
"Ev'rybody knows Margaret's mama married a White man," some kid would say.
"Well, at least they were married, ya bastard," she retorted.
She loved my mother and fought for her as much as she fought with her. My mother worked as a waitress at a coffee shop. One day she was sick and her boss threatened to fire her if she didn't show up. Margaret got on the phone and told him what he could do with his sorry-assed job.
Margaret just loved anybody who could sing and my mother has a beautiful voice. I still have the mental video of her beautiful face leaning down and singing to me.
There were ten in the bed and the little one said,
"Roll over, roll over."
So they all rolled over and one fell out.
...
There was one in the bed and the little one said,
"Good night. Sleep tight."
I would stand up in my crib and we'd play patty cake. She smiled so wonderfully that when she left I would look at the lightbulb burning on the ceiling and the lightbulb was like the embodiment of her smile. Her smile did not remind me of the light. The light reminded me of her smile. Call this a pre-lingual abstraction, if you will. Babies talk and know what they are talking about. A baby has a name for everything in its world until the huge ones supplant that world with what things are really called. Then comes confusion, self-doubt and forgetfulness. Is goo-goo universal? Do all babies call that thingamajig a ga-ga? A child's first necessary pain is the crumbling Tower of Babel—humankind's natural language.
Do I remember or do I just remember remembering—passing the memories from year to year and decade to decade like a baton in a relay race. The finish line is not marked by a ribbon but a pencil.
There are pictures of Margaret, a lovely woman with coiffed platinum blonde hair, fine bones and big sultry eyes, at the cabaret to hear my mother sing. My mother's voice fills a room and gives you the courage to delve into those parts of your heart you've always feared to go. When she sings about lost love, it is with the decisive strength of a woman who has faced her truths and survived.
Ohh we must say goodbye 'Cause you just gonna keep on making me cry — 1967
As much as my godmother loved my mother, it was hard having two strong women in the same house, and they would get into such verbally violent fights. I stood in the corner of my room, crying and screaming as Margaret stormed in and grabbed a vase or something to threaten my mother with. My young heart reeled inside me to see the two women I loved tear at each other like this. My world crumbled and lurched precariously as the two women I depended on for stability fought.
I dreamed of wolves. I dreamed dark dreams I no longer remember. But towards morning, I dreamed of water. Running water. Falling water. Trickling water. The moment I woke up, I knew that before I even had breakfast I was going to get a spanking. Whatever was the purpose of this daily ritual, it was lost on me. The memory of yesterday's whipping never invaded my dreams to rouse me to get up and go to the bathroom. I became used to the idea that things outside my control would get me in trouble. A few times, I tried to change the sheets before Margaret came in but she always found them and went straight for the backyard to get a switch while I stood in my room waiting and crying.
"Margaret, let me sleep with you. Please! I won't pee in your bed. I promise."
"I know you won't pee in my bed, 'cause you sleeping in your bed."
She kept walking down the hall and I was supposed to be walking with her but the distance between us was more from her words than the length or her legs. It wasn’t so much a distance between me and her but between me and my world— between me and the idea that I was safe, cherished and not alone in my world.