The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [57]
“You got another nigger.” He hadn't raised his voice. “All that shit was to tell me you got yourself another nigger.”
The moment I dreaded and had lied to avoid had arrived.
“Say it. Say it in plain words. Say, ‘Thomas’”—he mimicked my speech—“‘Thomas, I got myself another nigger’ Say it.”
He was the interrogator and I was the suspect.
“Well, he's not a nigger.”
“He's African, ain't he? Then, he's a nigger just like me and just like you. Except you try to act like a goddam ofay girl. But you just as much a nigger as I am. And so is your goddam holy Martin Luther King, another blackass nigger.”
He knew I loathed that word and didn't allow its use in my home. Now each time he said “nigger” he sharpened it and thrust it, rapierlike, into my body.
“Thomas”—I forced a sweet calm into my voice— “Thomas, there doesn't seem to be anything more to say.”
He denied that we had come to the end of our conversation and the end of the relationship. I was acting above my station, putting on airs like my siditty friends who were talking about freedom and writing stupid books that nobody read. Thinking I was white, raising my son to use big words and act like a white boy. His sister had told him to watch out for me. I didn't mean him no good. I thought I was better than his family.
I didn't move, even to pick up my drink. He spoke, letting the profanity and his dislike of me fill the room.
He would be surprised if that African didn't leave me stranded in London or in Africa, and I'd come back, dragging my ass, trying to make him feel grateful for a chance to fuck me. Well, don't think that he'd be around. Forget his phone number. In fact, tomorrow, he would have his phone number changed.
I noted with relief that he was already talking about tomorrow. His shoulders fell and he leaned back against the chair, his energy spent. I still didn't move.
He rose and walked out of the room and I followed. He was so large, he filled the entry. In a sharp move, he jerked back the curtain which covered the oval window at the door.
“Come here.” I was afraid to refuse, so I wedged myself close to him. “Look at that woman.”
Across the street a lone black woman walked under hazy streetlight carrying two full shopping bags. I didn't know her. Thomas reached into his jacket and pulled out his gun.
“You know something? I could blow that broad's head off, and I wouldn't do a day.”
He put the pistol back into its holster, opened the door and walked down the steps to his car.
I made another drink and thanked God for blessing me yet one more time. I had hurt Thomas's ego but I had not broken his heart. He wasn't injured enough to attack me, but he would never want to see me again.
Stanley and Jack Murray accepted my news without surprise. They said they had not expected me to stay. They felt that since I was an entertainer, I would leave the organization whenever I was offered a good night club contract or a part in a Broadway play. That's why they had brought in other dedicated workers to take over my job. I didn't bother to tell them how wrong they were.
Grace Killens laughed at me.
“You met him last week at our house, didn't you? And this week you're going to marry him. The Wild West Woman.” She laughed and laughed.
John took the news solemnly. Concern tightened his face and squeezed his voice into sharpness.
“He's serious about the struggle, but what else do we know? Are you going to be a second or third wife? How is he planning to look after you? Don't forget Guy. You're putting him under a strange man's roof and he's almost a man himself. How does he feel about that?”
Because he was the most important, I had left Guy for the last. Vus had said he wanted to be the first to talk to him and I was happy to accept the much-vaunted masculine camaraderie. Let men talk to men. It was better for a woman, even a mother, to stand back, keep quiet and let the men work out their mannish problems.
Guy was spending the night with Chuck, and Abbey and Max were performing, so Vus and I were given the use of