I laughed. “Oooh yeah. I had them figured out a hour after I met them. It’s been a long time since I met people who like to yip-yap as much as them two.”
“If they ever say anything nasty about me, don’t believe them. Sadie is a nice old lady, but she likes to be all up in other people’s business. A couple of months ago, she told a woman from my church that I had turned funny. The very next day, that woman told me what she’d said.”
“Funny how?”
Joyce swallowed hard and gave me a disgusted look. “Sadie likes to jump to conclusions. One day she asked me when I was going to get married. I told her I probably never would and that I didn’t care because men didn’t mean that much to me anymore. She took it and ran with it. Next thing I knew, she got it in her head that I was a bull-dagger.”
“Sadie thought you wanted to start fooling around with women?”
“Uh-huh. And all because of that one little comment I made about not being into men anymore!”
“I don’t know about you, but if somebody accused me of being funny, I’d set them straight.”
“I did. First I told her that it wasn’t true. Looking back on it now, I wish I had told her that the reason I wasn’t into men was because they had stopped being into me. That might have set her straight and stopped her from telling other people the same thing—but she’d probably done that already. I told her if she ever said something like that about me again, or any other nasty thing, I’d make Daddy and Mama fire her. She’s been real sweet to me ever since, but knowing her and Buddy, I’m probably still one of their favorite subjects to mean-mouth.”
“Sadie’s problem with you is jealousy. And I can understand why. You still have your whole life ahead of you, you got brains, a job to die for, and you look so much better than her. Her life is miserable and empty, and she’s old and homely. And Buddy”—I snickered and rolled my eyes—“poor Buddy. A blind man could see his crush on you. But even with a list of instructions, he wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“For one thing, he’s old enough to be your daddy. For another thing, you are way out of his league. I still can’t believe I’m sitting here with you now. . . .”
I hoped that Joyce would stop widening her eyes every time I said something that complimented her, because I didn’t want her eyeballs to roll out.
“I feel the same way,” she said, almost in a whisper. A few awkward seconds of silence passed before she spoke again. “Um . . . Daddy told me you used to work for Aunt Mattie, that whorehouse woman. How did you end up in a place like that?”
“Well, at the time I didn’t have nothing. I had a few bucks saved from my last job on a sugarcane farm, so I was able to pay my rent for a few weeks. When that ran out, I had to move. You wouldn’t believe how many different folks’ couches I slept on. When that ran out, I spent a week sleeping in one of my old bosses’ barn. Aunt Mattie was the only person who’d give me a job.” I stopped talking long enough to let my words sink in and from the pitiful look on Joyce’s face, I could tell that I was getting to her. “I ain’t proud of working in no whorehouse, but I did what I had to do. Believe me, it wasn’t no picnic.”
Joyce shuddered. “I’d rather shovel shit than work in that business. I can’t for the life of me understand how some women can sell their bodies. A girl I went to school with works for Aunt Mattie. But she was the kind of girl who was giving it away for free to anybody that asked for it anyhow. I guess she got smart enough to start making money. What kind of work did you do for Aunt Mattie?” There was a tense look on her face.
“Oh, this and that. The usual handyman stuff. When something broke, I fixed it. When Aunt Mattie needed something hauled from one spot to another one, or a chifforobe busted up, I done it.” I stopped talking for a few moments and laughed. “That Aunt Mattie. She’s a real piece of work. She ain’t all work and no play, though. Once or twice a week, she shuts the house down for a few hours. And then she and her girls go to the jook joints and bootleg houses to party and scout out new tricks to lure to the house. On them nights, I’d have to do some sweeping and dusting, and any other housekeeping chores that needed to be done. She even made me take a rag and sop the cum up off the floor when a trick shot his load too soon. If all that wasn’t done right, Aunt Mattie would dock my pay.”
The tense look was no longer on Joyce’s face. Now she looked like she wanted to laugh. “Goodness gracious! It sounds like Aunt Mattie kept you busy.”
She seemed to be enjoying my story, so I decided to keep talking. “Sure enough. On top of all the other stuff I did, I ran errands for her and her girls. Aunt Mattie is a good businesswoman. She’d send me to pick up high-grade liquor that she sold only to the white tricks. The colored tricks could only drink the homemade shit.”
Joyce shook her head. “Even in whorehouses, white folks got the upper hand.
