Mama Read Free

no fool." Whap.
    He threw the belt on the floor and collapsed next to Mildred on the bed. The terror in her voice faded to whimpers and sniffles. To the kids she sounded like Prince, their German shepherd, when he had gotten hit by a car last year on Twenty-fourth Street.
    Mildred curled up into a tight knot and tried to find a spot that would shelter her from Crook. She hoped he would fall asleep, but he reached over and turned on the TV. Mildred crept out the end of the bed and put on a slip.
    "Where you going?" he asked.
    "To the bathroom," she said. She closed the door behind her and headed straight for the kitchen, tiptoed around the broken glass, and opened the oven. She yanked the black skillet out and slung the grease into the sink. Crook heard her and came into the dining room to see what she was doing. Before he knew what was happening, Mildred raised the heavy pan into the air and charged into him, hitting him on the forehead with a loud throng. Blood ran down over his eye and he grabbed her and pushed her back into the bedroom. The kids heard them bumping into the wall for what seemed like forever and then they heard nothing at all.
    Freda hushed the girls and made them huddle under a flimsy flannel blanket on the bottom bunk bed. "Shut up, before they hear us and we'll be next," she whispered loudly. She tried to comfort the two youngest, Angel and Doll, by wrapping them inside her skinny arms, but it was no use. They couldn't stop crying. Since Freda was the oldest, she felt it was her place to act like an adult, but soon she started to cry too. None of them understood any of this, but when they heard the mattress squeaking, they knew what was happening.
    Money ran from his room into Freda's. They all sat on the cold metal edge of the bed where the mattress didn't touch, sniffling, listening. They waited patiently, hoping that after five or ten minutes all they would hear would be Crook's snoring. They prayed that they could all finally go to sleep. But just when they had settled into the rhythm of silence—the humming of the refrigerator, the cars passing on Twenty-fourth Street, Prince yawning on the back porch—their parents' moans and groans would erupt again and poison the peace.
    When Money couldn't stand it any more, he tiptoed back to his room. He flipped over his mattress, because the fighting always made him lose control of his bladder. He would say his prayers extra hard and swear that when he got older and got married he would never beat his wife, he wouldn't care what she did. He would leave first.
    The girls slid into their respective bunks and lay there, not moving to scratch or even twitch. They tried to inch into their separate dreams but the sound of creaking grew louder and louder, then faster and faster.
    "Why they try to kill each other, then do the nasty?" Bootsey asked Freda.
    "Mama don't like doing it," Freda explained. "She only doing it so Daddy won't hit her no more."
    "Sound like she like it to me. It's taking forever," said Bootsey. Angel and Doll didn't know what they were talking about.
    "Just go to sleep," Freda said. And pretty soon the noises stopped and their eyelids drooped and they fell asleep.
     
    The kids were already on the sun porch watching Saturday morning cartoons when Mildred emerged from the bedroom. She had a diaper tied around her head and a new layer of pan-cake makeup on to camouflage the swelling. The kids didn't say anything about the purple patch of skin beneath her eye or her swollen lip. They just stared at her like she was a stranger they were trying to identify.
    "What y'all looking at?" she said. "Y'all some of the nosiest kids I've ever seen in my life. Look at this house!" she snapped, trying to divert their attention. "It's a mess. Your daddy was drunk last night. Now I want y'all to brush your teeth and wash those dingy faces 'cause I ain't raising no heathens around here. Freda, make these kids some oatmeal. And I want this house spotless before