Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Spring 2009 - (Page 69) always cook early and plentifully because people here used to work early in the morning until sundown. Even though this wasn’t necessarily the case today, in 1985, Maymay kept the tradition and her old-time ways. T-Red’s eyebrows were wrinkled in displeasure as he and Black stood on opposite sides of the screen door like two dissimilar gamecocks ready to engage in a bloody cockfight. A mama cat squeezed its huge pregnant belly through the bottom of the screen door scampering over TRed’s muddy work boots. Unlike T-Red, Maymay sat in that old worn leather rocking chair with an amused and entertained look upon her face. Lifting her long, thin, pale, old and wrinkled face for the first time to acknowledge the two men’s conversation, she had a look filled with laughter and delight as she rocked. She wore her everyday long, low ponytail fastened with a pale blue rubber band. She had what she termed “that good stuff” — silky black hair that curled naturally. She didn’t need Celeste, Tut’s oldest daughter of 15, who served as the make-up artist and hair dresser of the family, to press her hair with a hot comb or perm it like Tut and Bumblebee’s children. When Celeste would press the girls’ hair in the kitchen with the hot comb, the children would yell, “Ay, yi, yi.” She would yell, “I don’t need no hot comb. I got dat good stuff. Y’all would have it too if your mama wouldn’t mess with them black nappy-headed mens.” “So you say you want to make an honest woman out of her. I’ll be damn!,” she said as she struck a match to light her pipe. “Say you gonna give her all the things she needs. How could this beautiful, angelic Creole girl, with the cutest dimples and red ribbons tied at the bottom of her hair like a nice little Catholic schoolgirl, have the worst reputation in Belle Place? Maymay continued the conversation from her rocking chair. “Hold on while I smoke my pipe some more. I don’t smoke it often petit garçon. Only smoke it when it’s something good and juicy to talk about. All these years I couldn’t join the conversation. Thanks to Tut, conversation has always been about me and my trashy family. Yeah.” She paused for a moment and stared as if in deep thought. “Yeah,” she said shaking the ponytail down her back and looking at Tut, “Thanks to you, Tut.” “They never remember all the favors T-Man did for them. Treating people here with headaches, backaches, earaches, and all kinds of aches. He would take care of other people before he took care of his own family’s problems and wouldn’t take a nickel for it. The doctor would always tell people, ‘Go to T-Man. If you got the faith, go to T-Man. He can do things when I can’t.’” Maymay looked at T-man’s picture. There was so much hurt in her eyes, she tried to resist the tears in front of her company. She lost the bravado in her voice and her eyelashes fluttered quickly. “He would treat them with his hands and shake out the sickness here on my property like he was shaking dirt from his hands. Only he was shaking demons, Cushma and all, on OUR property. Bumblebee had to tell me that them people left they demons here for us to fight off and for us to have the misery.” Maymay now gained strength and anger in her voice as she shouted. “Look at ma back teef,” T-Red said as he pushed the screen door towards Black to get his attention and smiled a huge exaggerated smile, “They all been knocked out fighting behind Tut and all of her mess.” Je serai un fils de chienne.” She darted a look at Tut. Avoiding Maymay’s slight glance, Tut, holding a hard blue Samsonite suitcase, looked flirtingly up at Black. Celeste used Bumblebee’s Avon lipstick sample on Tut’s thin lips to give them more color and depth. Using a coverless jar of Blue Magic hair grease, Celeste braided Tut’s sleek, sandy hair into two long French braids. Celeste tied two tiny red ribbons and rubber bands at the bottom of each braid that stopped just above Tut’s tiny waist. All the female children, Bumblebee, T-Red’s wife, and Maymay looked on in wonder at Tut’s transformation. Maymay commented from the doorway. “Mais, she went from a wild woman to a fixed-and-ready-to-go woman.” Bumblebee scolded Celeste for making Tut look so childish. Celeste defended her choice. “I had to French braid and grease her hair with Blue Magic because she won’t have me there to comb her hair in Sunset,” Celeste said as she fastened the last red rubber band and ribbon at the bottom of her mother’s hair. “Her hair will be all py-yay in a week or two. At least this will hold her decent for a while.” Looking at Tut this Friday afternoon, on company day, you would swear everyone was talking about someone else. Who was the slut, petain, or home wrecker T-Red shouted about in Maymay’s living room from the screen door? Tut looked innocent, young, benign, and fragile. “She told me that all of that stuff comes from Africa where they worship the devil. I don’t believe everything that crazy gal say. Mais I believe that though after seeing how ma family done change na. Bastille used to be a good name along the Bayou Teche and especially in Belle Place. People used to smile at that name. People used to swear to they children on that name. Now that name not worth a pot to piss in nor the window to throw it out.” Taking a long smoke from the pipe, she kicked the black and white pregnant mama cat. She yelled, “Chat, chat get that cat out of here before she have them babies in my clothes or eat out ma pot on the table.” One of the children sprinted through the kitchen in pursuit of the cat that made a dash for the kitchen door. The child caught the heavy cat and threw her outside. Maymay continued her speech. “Bumblebee and T-Red say that’s why Tut hot and Kojo a little retarded bitie. T-Man thought he was helping out his neighbors though! I learned how to help myself and to stay by myself since po’ T-Man passed away. Nobody is back here to help me and ma family. They only want to tear us down. I done learned though. I done learned.” Maymay shook her head emphatically and looked at the floor. Sadness and tears were trying to make their way back into her furious, wild eyes. “Them people left all they demons here on MY property. Now they say we hoodoo people. Now they say we crazy people. Now they say we is trashy people. Helping people Spring 2009/LOUISIANA CULTURAL VISTAS 69
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.