Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou [94]
The host said, “You are not to walk. These servants will carry you.” He stepped aside as one of the men walked up to the buggy, his arms outstretched.
Lillian said, “Maya, you let him carry you. I'll walk.”
I said, “No. Uh uh. I'll walk with you.”
Martha shouted from the other carriage. “Have you ever heard of anything so foul? My dear, Miss Fine's never had to be carried to a party. Come on, Ethel, we'll walk.”
We stepped out into mud that oozed up over the tops of our shoes and walked on as if we were doing the most ordinary thing in the world.
We rejected the offer to have house Blacks clean our feet, but accepted towels and wiped away the mud ourselves, chatting vapidly about the pretty villa and the lovely furnishings.
The hosts and other guests were shocked at our refusal to be tended to, not realizing that auction blocks and whipping posts were too recent in our history for us to be comfortable around slavish servants. The party flopped despite flowing champagne and brittle laughter, probably because we couldn't keep our eyes away from the Black men who stood like barefoot sentinels at every door, dressed in old galibiyas, waiting with obsequious smiles on their handsome faces.
When we walked to the door to leave, we found that planks of wood had been laid over the wet walkway that led to the drive. There was only one carriage; we were told that our escort was obliged to stay with the other guests, but that the driver would see us safely back in our hotel.
We were obviously too democratic for the company's comfort and they too feudal for ours.
• • •
A sign in the hotel elevator read:
Défrisage
MONSIEUR PIERRE
Reservations Made at Hotel Desk
Martha, Ethel, Gloria and I decided to have our hair straightened by chemicals and be rid for a while, at least, of the heavy iron combs heated over cans of sterno that made our hotel rooms smell.
We sat side by side in a luxurious beauty salon and accepted hot cups of sweet black coffee from a young barefoot boy. Monsieur was visibly French: he pooched out his mouth, rolled his eyes and danced pantomimes with his long, thin fingers. Martha and Ethel were lathered down first; then I was taken into a booth. When the assistant put a green foam on my hair, it trickled down to my scalp and began to sting. I tried to sit still and say nothing—after all, my friends were receiving the same treatment without comment—but when my entire head started burning intensely I screamed, “Take it out! Take this out of my hair!”
“Qu'est-ce que vous dites?” Monsieur rounded the corner, pushing the assistant out of the way.
I shouted, “I said take this crap out of my hair.”
Ethel said from the next stall, “Oooh, Maya, don't be such a crybaby.”
I turned on the water and pushed my head under the faucet. “It's burning me.”
The hairdresser, prompted by my loud shouting, hurriedly rinsed out the chemicals. My hair was still wet when I stalked angrily out into the streets, followed by my friends' snickers.
That evening Gloria's hair was so straight and airy that it flew around her head each time she moved. Ethel, Martha and other singers who had endured the process had only to shake their heads and their hair would bounce up and down and sideways with a sinuous smoothness.
A week passed and the hair that moved so freely began to move completely off the women's heads. Bare patches of scalp the size of small coins appeared at first, then enlarged until they could no longer be covered by an adept combing and plastering and pinning of hair from another side of the head.
A few weeks later my mother wrote me, “I read in Dorothy Kilgallen's column that all the young