Trash_ Stories - Dorothy Allison [92]
“I know what you mean.” Mama’s tone was pleasant, her face open and friendly. The woman turned to her, a momentary look of confusion on her face.
“You do?”
“Oh yes, there is no fighting what is meant. When God puts his hand on you, well . . .” Mama shrugged as if there were no need to say more.
The woman hesitated, and then nodded, “Yes. God has a plan for us all.”
“Yes.” Mama nodded. “Yes.” She reached over and put both hands on the woman’s clasped palms. “Bless you.” Mama beamed. This time the woman did frown. She didn’t know whether Mama was making fun of her, but she knew something was wrong. Her friend looked nervous.
“Just let me ask you something.” Mama pulled the woman’s hands toward her own midriff, drawing the woman slightly off balance and making her reach across the pile of underpants.
“Have you had cancer yet?” The words were spoken in the softest matron’s drawl but they cut the air like a razor.
“Oh!” the woman said.
Mama smiled. Her smile relaxed, full of enjoyment. “It an’t good news. But it is definite. You know something after, how everything can change in an instant.”
The woman’s eyes were fixed and dilated. “Oh! God is a rock,” she whispered.
“Yes.” Mama’s smile was too wide. “And Demerol.” She paused while the woman’s mouth worked as if she were going to protest, but could not. “And sleep,” Mama added that as it had just occurred to her. She nodded again. “Yes. God is Demerol and sleep and not vomiting when that’s all you’ve done for days. Oh, yes. God is more than I think you have yet imagined. It’s not like we get to choose what comes, after all.”
“Mama,” I said. “Please, Mama.”
Mama leaned over so that her face was close to the woman’s chin and spoke in a tightly parsed whisper.
“God is your daughter holding your hand when you can’t stand the smell of your own body. God is your husband not yelling, your insurance check coming when they said it would.” She leaned so close to the woman’s face, it looked as if she were about to kiss her, still holding on to both the woman’s hands. “God is any minute pain is not eating you up alive, any breath that doesn’t come out in a wheeze.”
The woman’s eyes were wide, still unblinking; the determined mouth clamped shut.
“I know God.” Mama assumed her old soft drawl. “I know God and the devil and everything in between. Oh yes. Yes.” The last word was fierce, not angry but final.
When she let go, I watched the woman fall back against her friend. The two of them turned to walk fast and straight away from us, leaving their selections on the table. I felt almost sorry for them. Then Mama sighed and settled back. With an easy motion, she snatched up a set of blue nylon briefs, size five. She turned her face to me with a wide happy smile.
“God! I do love shopping.”
“Wasn’t she from Louisville, that woman had the sports car? The one with those boots I liked so much?” Jo and I were folding sheets. We had cleared about a month of laundry off the bed, shifting sheets and towels up onto shelves, and stacking the T-shirts, socks, and underwear in baskets. Jo’s rules for housekeeping were simple; she did the least she could. All underpants, T-shirts, and socks in her house were white. Nothing was sorted by anything but size—when it was sorted at all. If I wanted to sleep, I had to get it all off the bed.
“No,” I said. “Met her after I moved to Brooklyn.”
“Sure had a lot of attitude. And Lord God! Those boots. What happened to her, anyway?”
“Got a job in Chicago working for a news show.”
“Oh, so not the one, huh?” Jo made a rude gesture with her right hand. “You talked like she had your heart in her hands.”
“For a while.” I shook out a sheet and began to refold it more neatly. “But when I moved in with her, things changed. Turned out she had Jack’s temper and Arlene’s talent for seeing what she wanted to see.”
“That’s a shock.” There was a sardonic drawl in Jo