Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim

Author:Iceberg Slim
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Cash Money Content

10

THE WIZARD OF WOO

Two days after Carol’s funeral I made my bed on the sofa. Sleeping in the bed where Carol had died gave my mind wrenching nightmares. Bessie and Junior were in the streets, and Mama was asleep. I was falling asleep when I heard knocking on the door.

I looked out the window to see if a police car or Lockjaw’s limousine was out front. I went and put an eye to a thin crack in the doorjamb.

It was Frederick. I held my breath and heard Mama snoring. I eased the door open and stepped outside into the hall. Frederick’s round face was drawn. His merry blue eyes were sad, and his pug nose was red like he had been weeping.

He said in a breaking voice, “I got in an hour ago. The chef at the cafe told me. Where is she?”

I said, “Oh, Frederick! She was buried with the baby two days ago in Rosehill Cemetery.”

He stood silently with a piteous look on his face. I didn’t tell him about Mama’s bestial part in the miscarriage. I did try, in a kid’s clumsy way to comfort him.

Just before he left he said bitterly, “Why did God take her? She was the loveliest, sweetest girl I ever met and will ever know.”

Then his cherub face softened, and he had a dreamy look in his eyes.

He almost whispered, “Sweet Pea, it was magical with Carol. I never felt dwarfish and pudgy and comical looking like I know I am. Girls of my own race in subtle ways never let me forget it. But Carol, bless her angel heart in heaven, made me feel six feet tall, handsome and loved.”

He turned and walked dejectedly away. I went to the window and watched his old Model A careen madly and disappear into the lonely April midnight.

With Carol gone, 1939 was a lonely year for me. Junior was seldom home. Bessie was openly hostile toward Mama and in defiance, ran the streets with Sally, and with Railhead when he could catch up with her.

I had no close buddies at school because I didn’t take to sports. But otherwise, I wasn’t doing badly in school. I had been advanced to the fifth grade, which was only one grade behind for an eleven year old.

Connie, the landlady, had a stroke that paralyzed the whole right side of her body. She was a no-good woman, but she looked so pitiful with a crutch and dragging her leg that I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. And her only relative, her son, never came to visit her any more, not even to get money.

I couldn’t visit Papa and Soldier as often as I wanted to because Papa would quiz me dizzy about Carol and where she was and why she didn’t write him. I’d get nervous and have a helluva headache after all the fast lies I’d have to tell him.

Lockjaw and Red dropped in several times for short visits. I didn’t hear Lockjaw mention the money Mama owed him.

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