Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [52]
L.D. guided his car down the dark streets and I, snuggled at his side, wished the ride would never end. On the highway he had said I was the sweetest little thing he'd ever seen and praised me for wearing the high school clothes that he preferred. I was his Bobby Sock Baby and he was going to make me so happy I'd cry.
I held precariously to the grateful tears that gathered behind my lids.
When he stopped the car and kissed me gently long and loving, my body pressed to be rid of the prison of skin.
Skid Row's broken glass might have been rose petals, and the arid smell of secondhand alcohol was India's most hypnotizing incense.
L.D. rang the bell at a grille door and called out his name. The door opened automatically and I followed him up dim, carpeted stairs. When he nodded to me I heeled in the shadows. He walked down the hall where a light gleamed over a half door. I heard whispers, then he came back to me jangling a key. The energy of passion carried me over the room's threshold and threw me across the bed.
L.D. sat patiently beside me and spoke quietly.
“You know I'm much older than you. I'm an old man, so don't expect the same things from me that you get from your young beaus.”
Beaus? R.L.? I couldn't matt my allure by telling him there were no beaus, or scream at him to undress or I'd tear his clothes in shreds. I forced my eyes closed and waited.
He kissed me and the tears I had held in the car came unfastened.
L.D. held me as if I were made of feather.
“Daddy's baby is scared, huh? Well, Daddy won't hurt his baby. Get undressed and wash up so we can lie down.”
“I had a bath before we left Stockton.”
He whispered, “Wash over there in that face bowl. Daddy's going to love his baby.”
I spent the next month metamorphosizing from Miss Insecure to Bobby Sock Baby. Being loved by an older married man gave me a youth I'd never known. I giggled into my Kleenex, fluttered my eyelashes and fairly gamboled over the greensward. At midnight when I doffed the cook's apron and washed my face and arms, I flew, anklets sparking white, into the arms of my garbardined lover. We went to chicken suppers in San Francisco, where I hoped and feared the stubble-bearded gamblers in the back room would recognize me as Vivian's daughter, who made good.
The grass I'd brought from San Francisco was holding out. I disciplined myself. One joint on Sunday and one on the morning of my day off. The weed always had an intense and immediate effect. Before the cigarette was smoked down to roach length, I had to smother my giggles. Just to see the falling folds of the curtains or the sway of a chair was enough to bring me to audible laughter. After an hour the hysteria of the high would abate and I could trust myself in public.
One day off, L.D. took me and my son for a picnic in the country. He had arrived early at my house, but I got ready quickly and we went to pick up the baby.
From the car windows I watched the farm rows. They ran toward the road as if to intercept it. It amused me that the neat lines marched up and fell away, to be replaced by others which in turn were themselves replaced. They had the show business precision of a drill team on parade. The thought of cotton rows practicing routines at night when everyone was asleep tickled my funny bone. A small blob of laughter curdled in the back of my throat and rolled over my tongue. I wanted to explain the joke to L.D., but there was no time. The chuckle was out. My laughter triggered the baby's and he joined me. The whole thing was getting funnier. I tried to control myself, but each time I looked at L.D.'s disapproving face I climbed to a new height of hilarity. When he stopped the car, the contractions were beginning to ease.
We unloaded the car silently and spread a blanket I'd taken from my bed.
When we settled, he said, “You've been smoking gauge, haven't you?”
“Yes.” I wasn't ashamed to admit it.
“How long have you been smoking?”
“About a year.”
He took my hand and held it tightly. “Do you know that junk can