The Color Purple - Alice Walker [10]
They yourn, I say, trying to push them back. I’m glad to help out. Do what I can.
You told Harpo to beat me, she said.
No I didn’t, I said.
Don’t lie, she said.
I didn’t mean it, I said.
Then what you say it for? she ast.
She standing there looking me straight in the eye. She look tired and her jaws full of air.
I say it cause I’m a fool, I say. I say it cause I’m jealous of you. I say it cause you do what I can’t.
What that? she say.
Fight. I say.
She stand there a long time, like what I said took the wind out her jaws. She mad before, sad now.
She say, All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men. But I never thought I’d have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let him beat me. Now if you want a dead son-in-law you just keep on advising him like you doing. She put her hand on her hip. I used to hunt game with a bow and arrow, she say.
I stop the little trembling that started when I saw her coming. I’m so shame of myself, I say. And the Lord he done whip me little bit too.
The Lord don’t like ugly, she say.
And he ain’t stuck on pretty.
This open the way for our talk to turn another way.
I say, You feels sorry for me, don’t you?
She think a minute. Yes ma’am, she say slow, I do.
I think I know how come, but I ast her anyhow.
She say, To tell the truth, you remind me of my mama. She under my daddy thumb. Naw, she under my daddy foot. Anything he say, goes. She never say nothing back. She never stand up for herself. Try to make a little half stand sometime for the children but that always backfire. More she stand up for us, the harder time he give her. He hate children and he hate where they come from. Tho from all the children he got, you’d never know it.
I never know nothing bout her family. I thought, looking at her, nobody in her family could be scared.
How many he got? I ast.
Twelve. She say.
Whew, I say. My daddy got six by my mama before she die, I say. He got four more by the wife he got now. I don’t mention the two he got by me.
How many girls? she ast.
Five, I say. How bout in your family?
Six boys, six girls. All the girls big and strong like me. Boys big and strong too, but all the girls stick together. Two brothers stick with us too, sometime. Us git in a fight, it’s a sight to see.
I ain’t never struck a living thing, I say. Oh, when I was at home I tap the little ones on the behind to make ’em behave, but not hard enough to hurt.
What you do when you git mad? she ast.
I think. I can’t even remember the last time I felt mad, I say. I used to git mad at my mammy cause she put a lot of work on me. Then I see how sick she is. Couldn’t stay mad at her. Couldn’t be mad at my daddy cause he my daddy. Bible say, Honor father and mother no matter what. Then after while every time I got mad, or start to feel mad, I got sick. Felt like throwing up. Terrible feeling. Then I start to feel nothing at all.
Sofia frown. Nothing at all?
Well, sometime Mr. _____ git on me pretty hard. I have to talk to Old Maker. But he my husband. I shrug my shoulders. This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways.
You ought to bash Mr. _____ head open, she say.
Think bout heaven later.
Not much funny to me. That funny. I laugh. She laugh. Then us both laugh so hard us flop down on the step.
Let’s make quilt pieces out of these messed up curtains, she say. And I run git my pattern book.
I sleeps like a baby now.
DEAR GOD,
Shug Avery sick and nobody in this town want to take the Queen Honeybee in. Her mammy say She told her so. Her pappy say, Tramp. A woman at church say she dying— maybe two berkulosis or some kind of nasty woman disease. What? I want to ast, but don’t. The women at church sometime nice to me. Sometime not. They look at me there struggling with Mr. _____ children. Trying to drag ’em to the church,