Everyone Needs A Mom

A GOOD MOTHER, MOTHER GOODE

copyrighted 1994 by Franchot Lewis

Maggie Goode and her little grandson rode out of Anacostia
on the Green Line, they were on their way down town to shop, and
were seated opposite two young girls, ladies, who were just
out of their teenage years, wearing T-shirts and jeans. The
T-shirts advertised a rap group, the Wasted, Wretched, Dreadful
Dead, and the girls defied you to think they were talking about
anything less important than a music video until the bigger one
cheerfully explained to the slender one why she was pregnant again.
It didn't have anything to do with anything, just that it was
something that people like them did.
"That baby's going to stare at you if he learned what idiocy
you're up to?"
The pregnant girl's head bobbed, agreeing entirely. She said,
she has been trying without any success to make herself believe
that the child she was bearing was part of some great plan. "The
fact is," she said, "Mark wants a son." Mark was her live-in boy
friend. She sighed, "Starting out with two kids is -" She
stopped, frowned - "This won't be another girl."

Maggie stared at them. They stared back. At first the pregnant
girl looked puzzled. The puzzlement quickly turned to defiance.
The other girl, with a sweep of the eyes, mumbled towards Maggie,
"What's wrong with her?" Maggie considered moving her grandson
to another seat. There was one far back in the car. If she moved,
she would have to stand. She glanced at her grandson, to see if
he was listening to the young women. He was looking out the
window, into the dark tunnel, at the flashing green lights passing
by. Fifteen seconds passed and the train began to come into a
station. The women stood and walked towards the door as though
they planned to alight at the station. Maggie relaxed, the women
were about to leave.

As she waited for the train to stop and the door to open, the
pregnant girl leaned against a rail and sighed a bit wearily, "I
never thought I would get pregnant again?"

Her friend asked, "Why?"

"The pain. I knew it hurt before I had my first, but I never
thought that it would hurt like it did."

"It hurts," her friend said.

"I know," she laughed, "my baby girl almost killed me, I
screamed, hollered, nuts. I hope this one won't hurt like that,
I'm going to tell that girl when she grows to some size: girl,
you almost killed me, you had your mama crying, girl, screaming
like the pain wasn't going to ever stop."

"Yeah?"

"Did yours hurt too?"

"Yes, they all do, but when it's over, the pain goes and you
forget about it like it never hurt at all."

"Yes?"

Maggie shook her head, said to herself, "The hurt never stops;
God made mothers to cry."

The train stopped, there was a wait before the doors opened.
When the door did opened the pregnant girl said, "I was beginning
to wonder if they'd were going to let us off this darn train,
that driver better go back into training."

"Come on, girl friend," her friend said. "It all works by
computers."

The two girls left. Mist was dripping behind Maggie's eye
glasses. Her grandson glanced up, "Grandmom?" Maggie was silent;
her grandson waited for about a second, looking at his grandmother;
then the train was starting up, a few more seconds, and it was
weaving through the tunnels, making noises, going heavy on the
track, passed the Navy Yard, on its way downtown, through the gray
light of the tunnel under the Capitol's streets. Suddenly, Maggie
squeezed her grandson's arm, hard, and he gaped, mouth opened
wide, eyes in a stare, sore arm, and she cried, softly, "Sorry,
Baby." She let go, "Eddie?"

"Grandmom?"

"I'm sorry."

"My arm's all right," he said.

She nodded. He looked away, at the tunnel lights passing by
the window.

****

"Christ ... Christ! We're in Hell. We're broiling. Yes,
broiling."

Maggie stared at a balding head, a man who still sometimes
courted her after a yard of years, her fellah with a humor that
was sometimes ill, but never meant anyone any harm, her husband.
He had just stood guard outside the bathroom door like it was an
official building that required a pass for entry. The occupant
of the bathroom was Maggie's and his only son, Thatch, the
father of their grandson, Eddie.

Maggie's husband was sixty three but acted forty, or thirty,
sometimes. But, when their son, Thatch, last came for a visit,
Maggie's husband acted ancient, and Maggie's husband didn't want
the son in the house.

"Because? He's a thief, he steals; robs from his own mama's
pocket book, robs me."

"No, that's in the past; Thatch says -"

"Don't tell me what that sucker says, I know -"

"He's our son, your son, mine."

"We've had to put him out, you know? Three times, four times
already?"

"He's stopped."

"When?"

"You have to give him a chance to redeem himself."

"Still another chance?"

"He's our son."

"So he comes to you on his knees, begging, crying, 'Mama,
let me back in, you've gotta let me come back home for a visit,
to talk to you,' is that how he put it?"

"Edward!"

"Don't holler, woman."

"He's been to the treatment program."

"Again? I talked to him yesterday on the street. I am not
going to let him in the house. I walked pass him and sniffed. He
had a distinct odor and it was not a faint smell. The scent was
strong enough to leave a whole street full of junkies lit."

"He promised."

"The last time you left him here by himself, he sold our CD
player and our VCR, and he would have taken the tv but a floor
model is too heavy for him to carry, thank goodness that boy
doesn't do any heavy lifting."

"He's our son."

"We've got to be firm about this, strong. It is for his good
too."

"Damn, that tough love, Hell. I'm not going to keep him
locked out."

"Maggie -"

"He's coming to visit today -"

"Aw -"

"He's coming."

"Look, if he steals anything, you are going to have to replace
it. If he takes anything of mine, you are going to have to pay me
back. I'm going to be here while he's here, I don't want him here
when I'm not here."

Thatch came and Edward stayed home from work and followed him
around the house, from room to room, standing guard while Thatch
was in the bathroom. As Thatch was leaving Maggie told him, "I'm
leaving a light on in the window. I'm going to leave it there like
a lantern hung on a post."

"Yeah, " Edward said. "Be sure to call first before you come;
give us a six-month notice."

Maggie thumbed her nose at Edward. Thatch said, softly, with
a smoothness that seemed to have been practiced for a century, "I
understand where Dad is coming from; Jesus loves him, and I love
him too."

A week later, Thatch was arrested; the charge, trafficking in
narcotics. The first Maggie heard of the arrest was when Edward
saw it in a newspaper and showed her the article.

"That couldn't be Thatch?" she cried.

Edward groaned, "It's him, the sucker."

The next day Maggie went to visit Thatch's wife, Ava.

"Gee, I'm just getting it," Ava said. "Thatch won't be coming
home for a darn while. I'm so glad you've come. We've been having
it real, dirt ball bad. No money. Talking to you is what I've
always wanted, but Thatch has been so independent, didn't want to
ask for help. Too proud to ask his people, you know? He was odd.
Sometimes we had nothing, not enough to give to Little Eddie, and
Thatch would, you know?"

"Things should have been different ..." Maggie wept and
continued to cry, softly.

"Thatch could be a louse ... "

"Didn't you try to help him too?"

"Yes. He wasn't a louse all the time, only a short while.
Pretty soon it would dawn on him that he had a child depending on
him, and he would get a job, a piece of a job, like he did last
summer that lasted all summer long. People aren't hiring now, you
know? I would get a piece of a job, myself, anything to bring
money in, and pay somebody to take care of Little Eddie while I
worked."

"Here, take this."

"Gee, Thatch never would take anything from you or ask."

"It's for Little Eddie."

"I've always told Thatch that he has the darnedest attitude."

A week passed, another visit at Ava's --

"Yes ... Come on in. The day goes so fast. Maybe I'm pregnant
again or something. I get so sleepy, and then I'm not your normal
housekeeper. Thatch always said that. He thought you kept the best
house in the world, was a saint, too, in too many ways. Forgive me,
but I would always get so grouchy when Thatch would talk about the
way I keep house. But you aren't interested in hearing about how I
spent my day, you've come to see Little Eddie. I'm not a very
interesting person. Who wants to listen to me, right? Eddie's in
his room sleeping like a dog. He had been barking all day, like I
was not here but a million miles away, now he's tired himself out
and have gone to sleep. Uh? I fed him. What? The refrigerator? What
are you doing? Okay, I was about to go shopping. Things cost.
Money doesn't go so far. What? I feel like telling you about
myself. Yeah? You don't know me. Or do you? What did Thatch tell
you?"

"I don't know what you mean?"

"Oh, I should tell you about his idea of romance? Some time I'll
tell you, maybe? Maybe I will how he was not really a nice person
at all, but just a wild man out of his mind half the time, who
pretended to like his wife and himself. I tried to understand him
and got knocked up side the head for my efforts. He could get mean,
frightfully. I was scared of him, sometimes. Wait! Listen! Hear
me. What it is, is that you're still in denial about his meanness?
Thatch got that stuff up in him, he smoked that shit and drank
Hennesey, and he acted like a beast up from a tree, not like that
nice son that you knowed and owned."

That night in bed Maggie's husband woke, heard Maggie sobbing.
"Crying again?"

"Quit, leave me alone," Maggie kept sobbing.

"Can't. I'm worrying if I don't do something, I'll drown, I'm
already being soaked. May I turn on the light so we can talk, yes?
No? We'll talk in the dark. You can't see this, but my sleeve is
wet clear through. This arm I keep near you is water drenched.
But I don't mind getting wet. All I mind is being drowned. I'd
like for us to talk. I wish we could back the car up outside D.C.
Jail, tie a line to the bars and the car and ugh! Let the boy
escape. It's a good healthy feeling to want this. But I'm afraid
it can't be done."

"Shut up!"

"No."

"I'm not thinking about Thatch, it's Little Eddie, you fool."

"What's wrong with little Eddie?"

"That girl, I want to choke her."

"Ava?"

"Have you ever talked to her? I have? For hours and hours.
You were right about her. When you first laid eyes on her, you
asked what Thatch ever saw in her. Breasts, degenerated sex, you
said, she was a hussy. I said, give the kids a chance."

"Maggie -"

"She brings the worst out of me, the worst thoughts, my darkest
thoughts."

"Maggie -"

"She's on that stuff; she's neglecting Little Eddie. She's
taking the money I give her for him and is not using it on food,
but that stuff. "

"Maggie, you've gave her money?"

"I could kill her."

"You gave her money, no?"

"For her bills. Her bills and her bills. The same bills over
and over again."

"Why don't you ask her to let you watch Little Eddie for a
while?"

"I did."

"And?"

"And no!" Ava said. "Never! Little Eddie is my baby. He is
all I have. I don't want to live without him. He is mine."

The next morning came - before the morning, the dawn, and
before the dawn, Maggie was up. From her street of houses on a
hilltop, silence. It was too early for her middle class neighbors,
even the birds on the roofs were asleep. Maggie stopped, pondered,
before she broke the silence by starting up her still sleeping
husband's town car. The car seemed to turn over slowly, and once
going, move slower. The drive seemed to be longer. A drizzle
began; the windshield's slap-happy wiper sprung into action;
Maggie winced at its unhappy echo.

In front of the apartment building where her grandson lived,
Maggie parked. The drizzle had lifted. The morning light looked
still-born, too many choking clouds lingered. She grabbed the
sacks of food and cleaning tools, and locked the car. She climbed
three flights of stairs, quickly, she stepped with a fair spring.
She knocked on the apartment door, called her son's wife's name,
demanded to be let in. The door opened - her grandson, demanding
a hug and breakfast, and getting picked up. And lifted? Quickly,
he was in the arms of his amazed, angry, stuttering grandmother who
toted him about the apartment's front room and yelled about his
clothing, a long dirty shirt that looked more like a smock than
sleep wear for a little boy.

He did not know where his mother was. Maggie had, had that
feeling of danger and dread. It had awaken her, made her fill the
car with stuff and run, in the still night time, to see her grandson.
Perhaps, it was seeing the boy in a smock that decided it for
Maggie: Her son's wife had to be made to give up the boy.

Maggie washed her grandson. She couldn't find any clean clothes
for him, so she dressed him in his least dirtiest clothes. She
served him the cold cereal from the kitchen cupboard, and then
remembered the food she had brought and cooked crisp bacon and
eggs which she did not serve him, he had fallen to sleep.

She cleaned the apartment and waited for her son's wife to
return, and prepared things to say.

"You ought to be in a cage, your arms tied to the rafters and
you whipped."

"You're tripping?"

"I should report you."

"Me? That's a laugh. What for?"

"You know mighty well what for? Leaving a child alone,
sneaking out to show your tail off to some scum in all your naked,
slutty glory."

"I guess that's right. I'm just as bad as your jailbird son."

Laughter, mocking laughter - Maggie heard a herd of heifers,
their hoofs hitting hard against her forehead. The light of a
brightening morning woke her. Her grandson, a lively boy, was
awake romping, stumping on the floor. The sun had crept out, her
son's wife had not return.

Maggie asked her grandson, "Do you want to go to grandmom's
house?"

Five days. FIVE DAYS passed - and thumping on Maggie's front
door, and a dusty woman, with waggled steps, waddled into the house
and stood.

"Where is Little Eddie?"

Maggie had let her in, but wouldn't let her pass the hall.
The woman, her son's wife eyeballed Maggie, peering out the corner
of her eyes, "I'm warning you, I won't leave without Little
Eddie."

"Where have you been for five days? Where did you sleep last
night? In a hay-stack? There are clump balls in your hair."

"I want my son."

Maggie smiled and sighed: "I'm pretty tired of you, dear. I'm
going to keep my grandson. You haven't an idea in that hay-stack
head of yours to raise him -"

"I've always wanted to tell you off, Mrs. Church Woman, Perfect
Mama."

"I try to be a good mother."

"I hate you."

"Why? Because you don't try to be a good mother?"

"If you try to keep Little Eddie, I'm going to whack you."

"It's come to threats of violence? You'll take the fall for
I'll never let you take Little Eddie."

"You know, you can not take somebody else's child, you can
borrow him, but not keep him."

"Exiting, eh?"

Maggie's son's wife's legs made a wobbly move, she balanced,
then dug down into her jacket and found a slip of paper. "Bills,
your son left Little Eddie and me with nothing but his bills.
These bills have to be paid."

Maggie's mouth went dry, and she stumbled over her tongue
until she found one Christian word to say, then found another
and another. "I ought to slap you, " she said. "I gave you money
and you just threw it away, messed it all up. I've been giving
you money, and you mess it up on drugs. You won't get another
penny from me."

"Who's going to pay your son's damn bills? Me? I don't have
any money."

"I won't give you a cent to pay the same bills over and over
again. You have put drugs before your child and yourself. My
grandchild is staying here, you can get your junkie ass out of
my house."

"Shit, you not going to take my baby, you old bitch, you old
dried-up bitch."

"Get out of my house!"

POW!

It was afternoon when Maggie awoke. She sprang up and rushed
from her bedroom towards the room that had been her son's and now
she meant to be her grandson's. Little Eddie was asleep, curled
in a sweet little heap, his brown eyes closed, his resting face in
repose against a fluffy pillow as he was taking his afternoon nap.
He looked so peaceful and safe. She remembered Ava, and was very
angry with herself for letting that, "that!", junkie sucker punch
her on the jaw. She knew that she must have gone right out cold.
But where was Ava? And who had put her to bed? And given Little
Eddie his nap? Edward. Who else? When Ava came to the house, Edward
was upstairs.

"Edward!"

In the kitchen on the bulletin board she found his note: Gone
to get stuff for you, be right back. PS: Ava's in jail; and you
shouldn't be reading this. Doctor, says you need to stay in bed,
you'll be alright, but you need rest. I'll be back in ten
minutes.

"Ten minutes?" She put a pot on the stove to make tea. Before
the water boiled Edward returned with a bag from the pharmacy.
"Maggie, go back to bed."

She shook her head. Edward smiled, "Don't get into cat fights
with younger women."

"Never in my life."

"Got the tea ready?"

"Ava -"

"Let the cops handle her. She was lit up with drugs. She came
here demanding money and assaulted you. She'll get eighteen months
to three years."

"After that?"

****

For only a moment more did Maggie hate Ava, for the train was
slowing down. It was pulling into a downtown station, and her
grandson with his smooth politeness, smiled, "We get off here
grandmom?" His eyes shown with light and it was unbearable to
hate. His face has features that were half Ava's, and half her
Thatch's. Maggie would have wept, but her grandson's eyes were
staring at her so deeply, and he was desiring so much to get off
the train, that he stood, took her arm and pulled. "Dear,"
she said, "Go easy on Grandmom's arm."

"This is where we get off, isn't it?"

"Yes, dear," Maggie took her grandson's hand and they left
the train. She took him and brought him all new things at stores
where there were so many wonderful things for little boys.



{END}