Song of Solomon

“It was summer. The year Daddy had that Packard. We went for a ride and you had to go to the bathroom. Remember?”

Milkman shook his head. “No. I don’t remember that.”

“I took you. We were in the country and there was no place else to go. So they made me take you. Mama wanted to, but Daddy wouldn’t let her. And he wouldn’t go himself. Corinthians turned up her nose and refused outright, so they made me go. I had on heels too. I was a girl too, but they made me go. You and I had to slide down a little slope off the shoulder of the road. It was pretty back in there. I unbuttoned your pants and turned away so you could be private. Some purple violets were growing all over the grass, and wild jonquil. I picked them and took some twigs from a tree. When I got home I stuck them in the ground right down there.” She nodded toward the window. “Just made a hole and stuck them in. I always liked flowers, you know. I was the one who started making artificial roses. Not Mama. Not Corinthians. Me. I loved to do it. It kept me . quiet. That’s why they make those people in the asylum weave baskets and make rag rugs. It keeps them quiet. If they didn’t have the baskets they might find out what’s really wrong and…do something. Something terrible. After you peed on me, I wanted to kill you. I even tried to once or twice. In little ways: leaving soap in your tub, things like that. But you never slipped and broke your neck, or fell down the stairs or anything.” She laughed a little. “But then I saw something. The flowers I’d stuck in the ground, the ones you peed on–well, they died, of course, but not the twig. It lived. It’s that maple. So I wasn’t mad about it anymore—the pee, I mean—because the tree was growing. But it’s dying now, Macon.”

Milkman rubbed the corner of his eye with his ring finger. He was so sleepy. “Yeah, well, that was a helluva piss, wouldn’t you say? You want me to give it another shot?”

Magdalene called Lena drew one hand out of the pocket of her robe and smashed it across his mouth. Milkman stiffened and made an incomplete gesture toward her. She ignored it and said, “As surely as my name is Magdalene, you are the line I will step across. I thought because that tree was alive that it was all right. But forgot that there are all kinds of ways to pee on people.”

“You listen here.” Milkman was sober now and he spoke as steadily as he could. “I’m going to make some allowance for your sherry—up to a point. But you keep your hands off me. What is all this about peeing on people?”

“You’ve been doing it to us all your life.”

“You’re crazy. When have I ever messed over anybody in this house? When did you ever see me telling anybody what to do or giving orders? I don’t carry no stick; I live and let live, you know that.”

“I know you told Daddy about Corinthians, that she was seeing a man. Secretly. And—”

“I had to. I’d love for her to find somebody, but I know that man. I—I’ve been around him. And I don’t think he…” Milkman stopped, unable to explain. About the Days, about what he suspected.

“Oh?” Her voice was thick with sarcasm. “You have somebody else in mind for her?”

“No.”

“No? But he’s Southside, and not good enough for her? It’s good enough for you, but not for her, right?”

“Lena…”

“What do you know about somebody not being good enough for somebody else? And since when did you care whether Corinthians stood up or fell down? You’ve been laughing at us all your life. Corinthians. Mama. Me. Using us, ordering us, and judging us: how we cook your food; how we keep your house. But now, all of a sudden, you have Corinthians’ welfare at heart and break her up from a man you don’t approve of. Who are you to approve or disapprove anybody or anything? I was breathing air in the world thirteen years before your lungs were even formed. Corinthians, twelve. You don’t know a single thing about either one of us—we made roses; that’s all you knew—but now you know what’s best for the very woman who wiped the dribble from your chin because you were too young to know how to spit. Our girlhood was spent like a found nickel on you. When you slept, we were quiet; when you were hungry, we cooked; when you wanted to play, we entertained you; and when you got grown enough to know the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford, everything in this house stopped for you. You have yet to wash your own underwear, spread a bed, wipe the ring from your tub, or move a fleck of your dirt from one place to another. And to this day, you have never asked one of us if we were tired, or sad, or wanted a cup of coffee. You’ve never picked up anything heavier than your own feet, or solved a problem harder than fourth-grade arithmetic. Where do you get the right to decide our lives?”

“Lena, cool it. I don’t want to hear it.”

“I’ll tell you where. From that hog’s gut that hangs down between your legs. Well, let me tell you something, baby brother: you will need more than that. I don’t know where you will get it or who will give it to you, but mark my words, you will need more than that. He has forbidden her to leave the house, made her quit her job, evicted the man, garnisheed his wages, and it is all because of you. You are exactly like him. Exactly. I didn’t go to college because of him. Because I was afraid of what he might do to Mama. You think because you hit him once that we all believe you were protecting her. Taking her side. It’s a lie. You were taking over, letting us know you had the right to tell her and all of us what to do.”

She stopped suddenly and Milkman could hear her breathing. When she started up again, her voice had changed; the steel was gone and in its place was a drifting, breezy music. “When we were little girls, before you were born, he took us to the icehouse once. Drove us there in his Hudson. We were all dressed up, and we stood there in front of those sweating black men, sucking ice out of our handkerchiefs, leaning forward a little so as not to drip water on our dresses. There were other children there. Barefoot, naked to the waist, dirty. But we stood apart, near the car, in white stockings, ribbons, and gloves. And when he talked to the men, he kept glancing at us, us and the car. The car and us. You see, he took us there so they could see us, envy us, envy him. Then one of the little boys came over to us and put his hand on Corinthians’ hair. She offered him her piece of ice and before we knew it, he was running toward us. He knocked the ice out of her hand into the dirt and shoved us both into the car. First he displayed us, then he splayed us. All our lives were like that: he would parade us like virgins through Babylon, then humiliate us like whores in Babylon. Now he has knocked the ice out of Corinthians’ hand again. And you are to blame.” Magdalene called Lena was crying. “You are to blame. You are a sad, pitiful, stupid, selfish, hateful man. I hope your little hog’s gut stands you in good stead, and that you take good care of it, because you don’t have anything else. But I want to give you notice.” She pulled her glasses out of her pocket and put them on. Her eyes doubled in size behind the lenses and were very pale and cold. “I don’t make roses anymore, and you have pissed your last in this house.”

Milkman said nothing.

“Now,” she whispered, “get out of my room.”

Milkman turned and walked across the room. It was good advice, he thought. Why not take it? He closed the