Color Purple, The - Alice Walker [6]
Lord, I wants to go so bad. Not to dance. Not to drink. Not to play card. Not even to hear Shug Avery sing. I just be thankful to lay eyes on her.
Mr.??? be gone all night Saturday, all night Sunday and most all day Monday. Shug Avery in town for the week-end. He stagger in, throw himself on the bed. He tired. He sad. He weak. He cry. Then he sleep the rest of the day and all night.
He wake up while I'm in the field. I been chopping cotton three hours by time he come. Us don't say nothing to each other.
But I got a million question to ast. What she wear? Is she still the same old Shug, like in my picture? How her hair is? What kind lipstick? Wig? She stout? She skinny? She sound well? Tired? Sick? Where you all children at while she singing all over the place?
Do she miss 'em? Questions be running back and forth through my mind. Peel like snakes. I pray for strength, bite the insides of my jaws.
Mr.??? pick up a hoe and start to chop. He chop bout three chops then he don't chop again. He drop the hoe in the furrow, turn right back on his heel, walk back to the house, go git him a cool drink of Water, git his pipe, sit on the porch and stare. I follow cause I think he sick. Then he say, You better git on back to the field. Don't wait for me.
Harpo no better at fighting his daddy back than me. Every day his daddy git up, sit on the porch, look out at nothing. Sometime look at the trees out front the house. Look at a butterfly if it light on the rail. Drink a little water in the day. A little wine in the evening. But mostly never move.
Harpo complain bout all the plowing he have to do.
His daddy say, You gonna do it.
Harpo nearly big as his daddy. He strong in body but weak in will. He scared.
Me and him out in the field all day. Us sweat, chopping and plowing. I'm roasted coffee bean color now. He black as the inside of a chimney. His eyes be sad and thoughtful. His face begin to look like a woman face.
Why you don't work no more? he ast his daddy.
No reason for me to. His daddy say. You here, ain't you? He say this nasty. Harpos feeling be hurt.
Plus, he still in love.
Harpo girl daddy say Harpo not good enough for. her. Harpo been courting the girl a while. He say he sit in the parlor with her, the daddy sit right there in the corner till everybody feel terrible. Then he go sit on the porch in front the open door where he can hear everything. Nine o'clock come, he bring Harpo his hat.
Why I'm not good enough? Harpo ast Mr.???. Mr.??? say, Your mammy.
Harpo say, What wrong with my mammy?
Mr.??? say, Somebody kill her.
Harpo be trouble with nightmares. He see his mama running cross the pasture trying to git home. Mr. ___, the man they say her boyfriend, catch up with her. She got Harpo by the hand. They both running and running. He grab hold of her shoulder, say, You can't quit me now. You mine. She say, No I ain't. My place is with my children. He say, Whore, you ain't got no place. He shoot her in the stomach. She fall down. The man run. Harpo grab her in his arms, put her head in his lap.
He start to call, Mama, Mama. It wake me up. The other children, too. They cry like they mama just die. Harpo come to, shaking.
I light the lamp and stand over him, patting his back.
It not her fault somebody kill her, he say. It not! It not!
Naw, I say. It not.
Everybody say how good I is to Mr.??? children. I be good to them. But I don't feel nothing for them. Patting Harpo back not even like patting a dog. It more like patting another piece of wood. Not a living tree, but a table, a chifferobe. Anyhow, they don't love me neither, no matter how good I is.
They don't mind. Cept for Harpo they won't work. The girls face always to the road. Bub be out all times of night drinking with boys twice his age. They daddy puff on his pipe.
Harpo tell me all his love business now. His mind on Sofia Butler day and night.
She pretty, he tell me. Bright.
Smart?
Naw. Bright skin. She smart too though, I think. Sometime us can git her away from her daddy.
I know right then the next thing I hear, she be big.
If