The Color Purple - Alice Walker [30]
Hm, she say, look like a little fat white woman was on one. What your sister Nettie like? she ast. Smart?
Yes, Lord, I say. Smart as anything. Read the newspapers when she was little more than talking. Did figures like they was nothing. Talked real well too. And sweet. There never was a sweeter girl, I say. Eyes just brimming over with it. She love me too, I say to Shug.
She tall or short? Shug ast. What kind of dress she like to wear? What her birthday? What her favorite color? Can she cook? Sew? What about hair?
Everything bout Nettie she want to know.
I talk so much my voice start to go. Why you want to know so much bout Nettie? I ast.
Cause she the only one you ever love, she say, sides me.
DEAR GOD,
All of a sudden Shug buddy-buddy again with Mr. ____. They sit on the steps, go down Harpo’s. Walk to the mailbox.
Shug laugh and laugh when he got anything to say. Show teef and tits aplenty.
Me and Grady try to carry on like us civilize. But it hard. When I hear Shug laugh I want to choke her, slap Mr. _____ face.
All this week I suffer. Grady and me feel so down he turn to reefer, I turn to prayer.
Saturday morning Shug put Nettie letter in my lap. Little fat queen of England stamps on it, plus stamps that got peanuts, coconuts, rubber trees and say Africa. I don’t know where England at. Don’t know where Africa at either. So I still don’t know where Nettie at.
He been keeping your letters, say Shug.
Naw, I say. Mr. _____ mean sometimes, but he not that mean.
She say, Humpf, he that mean.
But how come he do it? I ast. He know Nettie mean everything in the world to me.
Shug say she don’t know, but us gon find out.
Us seal the letter up again and put it back in Mr. _____ pocket
He walk round with it in his coat all day. He never mention it. Just talk and laugh with Grady, Harpo and Swain, and try to learn how to drive Shug car.
I watch him so close, I begin to feel a lightening in the head. Fore I know anything I’m standing hind his chair with his razor open.
Then I hear Shug laugh, like something just too funny. She say to me, I know I told you I need something to cut this hangnail with, but Albert git real niggerish bout his razor.
Mr. _____ look behind him. Put that down, he say. Women, always needing to cut this and shave that, and always gumming up the razor.
Shug got her hand on the razor now. She say, Oh it look dull anyway. She take and sling it back in the shaving box.
All day long I act just like Sofia. I stutter. I mutter to myself. I stumble bout the house crazy for Mr. _____ blood. In my mind, he falling dead every which a way. By time night come, I can’t speak. Every time I open my mouth nothing come out but a little burp.
Shug tell everybody I got a fever and she put me to bed.
It probably catching, she say to Mr. ____. Maybe you better sleep somewhere else. But she stay with me all night long. I don’t sleep. I don’t cry. I don’t do nothing. I’m cold too. Pretty soon I think maybe I’m dead.
Shug hold me close to her and sometimes talk.
One thing my mama hated me for was how much I love to fuck, she say. She never love to do nothing had anything to do with touching nobody, she say. I try to kiss her, she turn her mouth away. Say, Cut that out Lillie, she say. Lillie Shug’s real name. She just so sweet they call her Shug.
My daddy love me to kiss and hug him, but she didn’t like the looks of that. So when I met Albert, and once I got in his arms, nothing could git me out. It was good, too, she say. You know for me to have three babies by Albert and Albert weak as he is, it had to be good.
I had every one of my babies at home, too. Midwife come, preacher come, a bunch of the good ladies from the church. Just when I hurt so much I don’t know my own name, they think a good time to talk bout repent.
She laugh. I was too big a fool to repent. Then she say, I loved me some Albert ____.
I don’t even want to say nothing. Where I’m at it peaceful. It calm. No Albert there. No Shug. Nothing.
Shug say, the last baby did it. They turned me out. I went to