Color Purple, The - Alice Walker [53]
Not the little wildflowers. Nothing.
Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr.?.??'s evil sort of shrink. But not altogether. Still, it is like Shug say, You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a'tall.
Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere.
Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock.
But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don't want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes.
Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.
Amen
When I told Shug I'm writing to you instead of to God, she laugh. Nettie don't know these people, she say. Considering who I been writing to, this strike me funny.
It was Sofia you saw working as the mayor's maid. The woman you saw carrying the white woman's packages that day in town. Sofia Mr.???'s son Harpo's wife. Polices lock her up for sassing the mayor's wife and hitting the mayor back. First she was hi prison working hi the laundry and dying fast. Then us got her move to the mayor's house. She had to sleep hi a little room up under the house, but it was better than prison. Flies, maybe, but no rats.
Anyhow, they kept her eleven and a half years, give her six months off for good behavior so she could come home early to her family.
Her bigger children married and gone, and her littlest children mad at her, don't know who she is. Think she act funny, look old and dote on that little white gal she raise.
Yesterday us all had dinner at Odessa's house. Odessa Sofia's sister. She raise the kids. Her and her husband Jack. Harpo's woman Squeak, and Harpo himself.
Sofia sit down at the big table like there's no room for her. Children reach cross her like she not there. Harpo and Squeak act like a old married couple. Children call Odessa mama. Call Squeak little mama. Call Sofia "Miss." The only one seem to pay her any tendon at all is Harpo and Squeak's little girl, Suzie Q. She sit cross from Sofia and squinch up her eyes at her.
As soon as dinner over, Shug push back her chair and light a cigarette. Now is come the time to tell yall, she say.
Tell us what? Harpo ast.
Us leaving, she say.
Yeah? say Harpo, looking round for the coffee. And then looking over at Grady.
Us leaving, Shug say again. Mr.??? look struck, like he always look when Shug say she going anywhere. He reach down and rub his stomach, look off side her head like nothing been said.
Grady say, Such good peoples, that's the truth. The salt of the earth. But? time to move on.
Squeak not saying nothing. She got her chin glued to her plate. I'm not saying nothing either. I'm waiting for the feathers to fly.
Celie is coming with us, say Shug.
Mr.???'s head swivel back straight. Say what? he ast.
Celie is coming to Memphis with me.
Over my dead body, Mr.??? say.
You satisfied that what you want, Shug say, cool as clabber.
Mr.??? start up from his seat, look at Shug, plop back down again. He look over at me. I thought you was finally happy, he say.
What wrong now?
You a lowdown dog is what's wrong, I say. It's time to leave you and enter into the Creation. And your dead body just the welcome mat I need.
Say what? he ast. Shock.
All round the table folkses mouths be dropping open.
You took my sister Nettie away from me, I say. And she was the only person love me in the world.
Mr.??? start to sputter. ButButButButBut. Sound like some kind of motor.
But Nettie and my children coming home soon, I say. And when she do, all us together gon whup your ass.
Nettie and your children! say