Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [51]
L.D. and Minnie went into a side bedroom and stayed only a few minutes. “Okay, Minnie, see you soon. Let's go, Rita.” He had no smile for her and no small talk. I was glad. It was obvious that she wasn't a very nice person. (Nice persons meaning people who tried to draw me out and who found my stolid face and ungiving attitude charming.)
He was either running a lottery or selling the whores dope, and the fact that he never mentioned what his “business” was told me that he thought I was square. It never occurred to me that he might have liked that, so I decided at just that proper time I would tell him that once I had a house in San Diego employing two whores.
That night, I told him about my baby and that he was three years old and how pretty and smart he was. L.D. said nothing until we parked in front of my house.
He twisted in the dark and pulled his roll of money from a side pocket.
“Rita, I don't want you to get me wrong. I'm not trying to buy your affections. But you are alone and have a baby to raise. I'd be less than a man if I didn't try to help you.” He folded a bill and pressed it into my hand. “Now, don't say anything. Just use it for yourself and the baby.
“All right, get out now. I won't be able to see you for a few days. There's a big game down in the city. I'll come to the restaurant as soon as I get back.”
I wanted to lean over and kiss him, but his aloofness didn't encourage me.
“Good night, L.D., and good luck.”
“Thank you, Rita.”
I turned the lamp on in my room and looked down at the fifty-dollar bill crumpled in my palm.
It was the first time any man other than Bailey had given me money.
I bought an outfit worthy of a Hollywood siren and toys for my son.
CHAPTER 26
For the next three weeks I rode the California highways with L.D. I met Dimples in Fresno and Helen in Merced and Jackie and Lil in Mendota and Firebaugh, and a few women who had cabins along the road with access to the transient field workers. L.D. continued making generous gifts, saying business was good. I never asked him what business it was and he never offered any information. I didn't have to fend off his advances, since he didn't make any.
Desire for him grew in direct proportion to his indifference. I experimented with every ploy I could dream up. He had revealed to me that he didn't read books, so I tried to impress him with my great love of learning. He liked straight shooters, so one night I told him how much I cared. He had pity for me, an unmarried mother. I cried out my aching loneliness. Nothing fazed him or prodded him into taking me in his arms.
The restaurant had become a larger bore than a lifetime in the Gobi Desert, and I found no enjoyment in my books or playing with my son. All life funneled down to one smile, one man's soft, quiet “Good evening, Rita. How you doing tonight?”
“Here's a hundred dollars.” The bills fanned out from his fingers.
“Oh, I couldn't take that much.”
“I want you to go shopping and buy some different clothes. You dress too old. You ought to dress your age. You're young. Buy some low shoes and anklets. Some blouses and pretty colored skirts. And put a bow ribbon in your hair.”
I hadn't worn socks in years and had hated them then. They made my already long legs look longer. But L.D. asked.
When he saw me in the schoolgirl outfit he said I was his “Bobby Sock Baby” and he was going to give me a special gift. On my next day off he took me to the city.
“This is not business this time. It's just for you. I'm going to give you what you've been wanting.”
He smiled and patted my cheek and I would have thought it a privilege to die for him.
San Francisco's South of Market area was a mystery land where homeless drunks loitered before the dirty windows of liquor stores. Pawnshops' glaring signs promised to exchange money out of proportion for goods. People I knew only went South of Market to reach the S.P railway station