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  Toni Cade Bambara

  GORILLA, MY LOVE

  Toni Cade Bambara is the author of two short-story collections, Gorilla, My Love and The Sea Birds Are Still Alive; a novel, The Salt Eaters; and a posthumous collection of stories and essays, Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions. She edited The Black Woman and Tales and Short Stories for Black Folks. She died in December 1995.

  ALSO BY Toni Cade Bambara

  The Black Woman (editor)

  Tales and Short Stories for Black Folks (editor)

  The Salt Eaters

  The Sea Birds Are Still Alive

  Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions

  FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, JULY 1992

  Copyright © 1960, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972 by Toni Cade Bambara

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Random House, Inc., New York, in 1972.

  “Sweet Town” first appeared in Vendome, January, 1959.

  “Mississippi Ham Rider” first appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Summer 1960; also appeared in Black and White in American Culture, University of Massachusetts Press, 1969.

  “The Hammer Man” first appeared in Negro Digest, February, 1966; also appeared in What’s Happening, Scott, Foresman & Co., 1969. “Playin With Punjab” first appeared in Liberator Magazine, February, 1967. “Talkin Bout Sonny” first appeared in Liberator Magazine, June, 1967. “Maggie of the Green Bottles” first appeared in Prairie Schooner Magazine, Winter 1967-68. “Happy Birthday” first appeared in What’s Happening, Scott, Foresman, 1969. “Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird” first appeared in Another I/Eye, Scott, Foresman, 1971; also appeared in Redbook Magazine, April 1972. “Raymond’s Run” first appeared in Tales and Short Stories for Black Folks, Doubleday, 1971; also appeared in Redbook Magazine, June, 1971. “My Man Bovanne” first appeared in Black World, October, 1971, under the title “Mama Hazel Takes to Her Bed.” “Gorilla, My Love” first appeared in Redbook Magazine, November, 1971, under the title “I Ain’t Playin, I’m Hurtin.”

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bambara, Toni Cade.

  Gorilla, my love / by Toni Cade Bambara.—1st Vintage contemporaries ed.

  p. cm.—(Vintage contemporaries)

  eISBN: 978-0-307-77800-0

  I. Title.

  PS3552.A473G6 1992

  813′.54—dc20 91-58065

  v3.1

  To the Johnson Girls

  with the deepest and most compassionate

  love and respect

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Sort of Preface

  My Man Bovanne

  Gorilla, My Love

  Raymond’s Run

  The Hammer Man

  Mississippi Ham Rider

  Happy Birthday

  Playin With Punjab

  Talkin Bout Sonny

  The Lesson

  The Survivor

  Sweet Town

  Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird

  Basement

  Maggie of the Green Bottles

  The Johnson Girls

  A Sort of Preface

  It does no good to write autobiographical fiction cause the minute the book hits the stand here comes your mama screamin how could you and sighin death where is thy sting and she snatches you up out your bed to grill you about what was going down back there in Brooklyn when she was working three jobs and trying to improve the quality of your life and come to find on this page that you were messin around with that nasty boy up the block and breaks into sobs and quite naturally your family strolls in all sleepy-eyed to catch the floor show at 5:00 A.M. but as far as your mama is concerned, it is nineteen-forty-and-something and you ain’t too grown to have your ass whipped.

  And it’s no use using bits and snatches even of real events and real people, even if you do cover, guise, switch-around and change-up cause next thing you know your best friend’s laundry cart is squeaking past but your bell ain’t ringing so you trot down the block after her and there’s this drafty cold pressure front the weatherman surely did not predict and your friend says in this chilly way that it’s really something when your own friend stabs you in the back with a pen and for the next two blocks you try to explain that the character is not her at all but just happens to be speaking one of her lines and right about the time you hit the laundromat and you’re ready to just give it up and take the weight, she turns to you and says that seeing as how you have plundered her soul and walked off with a piece of her flesh, the least you can do is spin off half the royalties her way.

  So I deal in straight-up fiction myself, cause I value my family and friends, and mostly cause I lie a lot anyway.

  My Man Bovanne

  BLIND PEOPLE got a hummin jones if you notice. Which is understandable completely once you been around one and notice what no eyes will force you into to see people, and you get past the first time, which seems to come out of nowhere, and it’s like you in church again with fat-chest ladies and old gents gruntin a hum low in the throat to whatever the preacher be saying. Shakey Bee bottom lip all swole up with Sweet Peach and me explainin how come the sweet-potato bread was a dollar-quarter this time stead of dollar regular and he say uh hunh he understand, then he break into this thizzin kind of hum which is quiet, but fiercesome just the same, if you ain’t ready for it. Which I wasn’t. But I got used to it and the onliest time I had to say somethin bout it was when he was playin checkers on the stoop one time and he commenst to hummin quite churchy seem to me. So I says, “Look here Shakey Bee, I can’t beat you and Jesus too.” He stop.

  So that’s how come I asked My Man Bovanne to dance. He ain’t my man mind you, just a nice ole gent from the block that we all know cause he fixes things and the kids like him. Or used to fore Black Power got hold their minds and mess em around till they can’t be civil to ole folks. So we at this benefit for my niece’s cousin who’s runnin for somethin with this Black party somethin or other behind her. And I press up close to dance with Bovanne who blind and I’m hummin and he hummin, chest to chest like talkin. Not jammin my breasts into the man. Wasn’t bout tits. Was bout vibrations. And he dug it and asked me what color dress I had on and how my hair was fixed and how I was doin without a man, not nosy but nice-like, and who was at this affair and was the canapés dainty-stingy or healthy enough to get hold of proper. Comfy and cheery is what I’m tryin to get across. Touch talkin like the heel of the hand on the tambourine or on a drum.

  But right away Joe Lee come up on us and frown for dancin so close to the man. My own son who knows what kind of warm I am about; and don’t grown men call me long distance and in the middle of the night for a little Mama comfort? But he frown. Which ain’t right since Bovanne can’t see and defend himself. Just a nice old man who fixes toasters and busted irons and bicycles and things and changes the lock on my door when my men friends get messy. Nice man. Which is not why they invited him. Grass roots you see. Me and Sister Taylor and the woman who does heads at Mamies and the man from the barber shop, we all there on account of we grass roots. And I ain’t never been souther than Brooklyn Battery and no more country than the window box on my fire escape. And just yesterday my kids tellin me to take them countrified rags off my head and be cool. And now can’t get Black enough to suit em. So everybody passin sayin My Man Bovanne. Big deal, keep steppin and don’t even stop a minute to get the man a d
rink or one of them cute sandwiches or tell him what’s goin on. And him standin there with a smile ready case someone do speak he want to be ready. So that’s how come I pull him on the dance floor and we dance squeezin past the tables and chairs and all them coats and people standin round up in each other face talkin bout this and that but got no use for this blind man who mostly fixed skates and skooters for all these folks when they was just kids. So I’m pressed up close and we touch talkin with the hum. And here come my daughter cuttin her eye at me like she do when she tell me about my “apolitical” self like I got hoof and mouf disease and there ain’t no hope at all. And I don’t pay her no mind and just look up in Bovanne shadow face and tell him his stomach like a drum and he laugh. Laugh real loud. And here come my youngest, Task, with a tap on my elbow like he the third grade monitor and I’m cuttin up on the line to assembly.

  “I was just talkin on the drums,” I explained when they hauled me into the kitchen. I figured drums was my best defense. They can get ready for drums what with all this heritage business. And Bovanne stomach just like that drum Task give me when he come back from Africa. You just touch it and it hum thizzm, thizzm. So I stuck to the drum story. “Just drummin that’s all.”

  “Mama, what are you talkin about?”

  “She had too much to drink,” say Elo to Task cause she don’t hardly say nuthin to me direct no more since that ugly argument about my wigs.

  “Look here Mama,” say Task, the gentle one. “We just tryin to pull your coat. You were makin a spectacle of yourself out there dancing like that.”

  “Dancin like what?”

  Task run a hand over his left ear like his father for the world and his father before that.

  “Like a bitch in heat,” say Elo.

  “Well uhh, I was goin to say like one of them sex-starved ladies gettin on in years and not too discriminating. Know what I mean?”

  I don’t answer cause I’ll cry. Terrible thing when your own children talk to you like that. Pullin me out the party and hustlin me into some stranger’s kitchen in the back of a bar just like the damn police. And ain’t like I’m old old. I can still wear me some sleeveless dresses without the meat hangin off my arm. And I keep up with some thangs through my kids. Who ain’t kids no more. To hear them tell it. So I don’t say nuthin.

  “Dancin with that tom,” say Elo to Joe Lee, who leanin on the folks’ freezer. “His feet can smell a cracker a mile away and go into their shuffle number post haste. And them eyes. He could be a little considerate and put on some shades. Who wants to look into them blown-out fuses that—”

  “Is this what they call the generation gap?” I say.

  “Generation gap,” spits Elo, like I suggested castor oil and fricassee possum in the milk-shakes or somethin. “That’s a white concept for a white phenomenon. There’s no generation gap among Black people. We are a col—”

  “Yeh, well never mind,” says Joe Lee. “The point is Mama … well, it’s pride. You embarrass yourself and us too dancin like that.”

  “I wasn’t shame.” Then nobody say nuthin. Them standin there in they pretty clothes with drinks in they hands and gangin up on me, and me in the third-degree chair and nary a olive to my name. Felt just like the police got hold to me.

  “First of all,” Task say, holdin up his hand and tickin off the offenses, “the dress. Now that dress is too short, Mama, and too low-cut for a woman your age. And Tamu’s going to make a speech tonight to kick off the campaign and will be introducin you and expecting you to organize the council of elders—”

  “Me? Didn nobody ask me nuthin. You mean Nisi? She change her name?”

  “Well, Norton was supposed to tell you about it. Nisi wants to introduce you and then encourage the older folks to form a Council of the Elders to act as an advisory—”

  “And you going to be standing there with your boobs out and that wig on your head and that hem up to your ass. And people’ll say, ‘Ain’t that the horny bitch that was grindin with the blind dude?’ ”

  “Elo, be cool a minute,” say Task, gettin to the next finger. “And then there’s the drinkin. Mama, you know you can’t drink cause next thing you know you be laughin loud and carryin on,” and he grab another finger for the loudness. “And then there’s the dancin. You been tattooed on the man for four records straight and slow draggin even on the fast numbers. How you think that look for a woman your age?”

  “What’s my age?”

  “What?”

  “I’m axin you all a simple question. You keep talkin bout what’s proper for a woman my age. How old am I anyhow?” And Joe Lee slams his eyes shut and squinches up his face to figure. And Task run a hand over his ear and stare into his glass like the ice cubes goin calculate for him. And Elo just starin at the top of my head like she goin rip the wig off any minute now.

  “Is your hair braided up under that thing? If so, why don’t you take it off? You always did do a neat cornroll.”

  “Uh huh,” cause I’m thinkin how she couldn’t undo her hair fast enough talking bout cornroll so countrified. None of which was the subject. “How old, I say?”

  “Sixtee-one or—”

  “You a damn lie Joe Lee Peoples.”

  “And that’s another thing,” say Task on the fingers.

  “You know what you all can kiss,” I say, gettin up and brushin the wrinkles out my lap.

  “Oh, Mama,” Elo say, puttin a hand on my shoulder like she hasn’t done since she left home and the hand landin light and not sure it supposed to be there. Which hurt me to my heart. Cause this was the child in our happiness fore Mr. Peoples die. And I carried that child strapped to my chest till she was nearly two. We was close is what I’m tryin to tell you. Cause it was more me in the child than the others. And even after Task it was the girlchild I covered in the night and wept over for no reason at all less it was she was a chub-chub like me and not very pretty, but a warm child. And how did things get to this, that she can’t put a sure hand on me and say Mama we love you and care about you and you entitled to enjoy yourself cause you a good woman?

  “And then there’s Reverend Trent,” say Task, glancin from left to right like they hatchin a plot and just now lettin me in on it. “You were suppose to be talking with him tonight, Mama, about giving us his basement for campaign headquarters and—”

  “Didn nobody tell me nuthin. If grass roots mean you kept in the dark I can’t use it. I really can’t. And Reven Trent a fool anyway the way he tore into the widow man up there on Edgecomb cause he wouldn’t take in three of them foster children and the woman not even comfy in the ground yet and the man’s mind messed up and—”

  “Look here,” say Task. “What we need is a family conference so we can get all this stuff cleared up and laid out on the table. In the meantime I think we better get back into the other room and tend to business. And in the meantime, Mama, see if you can’t get to Reverend Trent and—”

  “You want me to belly rub with the Reven, that it?”

  “Oh damn,” Elo say and go through the swingin door.

  “We’ll talk about all this at dinner. How’s tomorrow night, Joe Lee?” While Joe Lee being self-important I’m wonderin who’s doin the cookin and how come no body ax me if I’m free and do I get a corsage and things like that. Then Joe nod that it’s O.K. and he go through the swingin door and just a little hubbub come through from the other room. Then Task smile his smile, lookin just like his daddy and he leave. And it just me in this stranger’s kitchen, which was a mess I wouldn’t never let my kitchen look like. Poison you just to look at the pots. Then the door swing the other way and it’s My Man Bovanne standin there sayin Miss Hazel but lookin at the deep fry and then at the steam table, and most surprised when I come up on him from the other direction and take him on out of there. Pass the folks pushin up towards the stage where Nisi and some other people settin and ready to talk, and folks gettin to the last of the sandwiches and the booze fore they settle down in one spot and listen serious. And I’m
thinkin bout tellin Bovanne what a lovely long dress Nisi got on and the earrings and her hair piled up in a cone and the people bout to hear how we all gettin screwed and gotta form our own party and everybody there listenin and lookin. But instead I just haul the man on out of there, and Joe Lee and his wife look at me like I’m terrible, but they ain’t said boo to the man yet. Cause he blind and old and don’t nobody there need him since they grown up and don’t need they skates fixed no more.

  “Where we goin, Miss Hazel?” Him knowin all the time.

  “First we gonna buy you some dark sunglasses. Then you comin with me to the supermarket so I can pick up tomorrow’s dinner, which is goin to be a grand thing proper and you invited. Then we goin to my house.”

  “That be fine. I surely would like to rest my feet.” Bein cute, but you got to let men play out they little show, blind or not. So he chat on bout how tired he is and how he appreciate me takin him in hand this way. And I’m thinkin I’ll have him change the lock on my door first thing. Then I’ll give the man a nice warm bath with jasmine leaves in the water and a little Epsom salt on the sponge to do his back. And then a good rubdown with rose water and olive oil. Then a cup of lemon tea with a taste in it. And a little talcum, some of that fancy stuff Nisi mother sent over last Christmas. And then a massage, a good face massage round the forehead which is the worryin part. Cause you gots to take care of the older folks. And let them know they still needed to run the mimeo machine and keep the spark plugs clean and fix the mailboxes for folks who might help us get the breakfast program goin, and the school for the little kids and the campaign and all. Cause old folks is the nation. That what Nisi was sayin and I mean to do my part.

  “I imagine you are a very pretty woman, Miss Hazel.”

  “I surely am,” I say just like the hussy my daughter always say I was.

  Gorilla, My Love

  THAT WAS THE YEAR Hunca Bubba changed his name. Not a change up, but a change back, since Jefferson Winston Vale was the name in the first place. Which was news to me cause he’d been my Hunca Bubba my whole lifetime, since I couldn’t manage Uncle to save my life. So far as I was concerned it was a change completely to somethin soundin very geographical weatherlike to me, like somethin you’d find in a almanac. Or somethin you’d run across when you sittin in the navigator seat with a wet thumb on the map crinkly in your lap, watchin the roads and signs so when Granddaddy Vale say “Which way, Scout,” you got sense enough to say take the next exit or take a left or whatever it is. Not that Scout’s my name. Just the name Granddaddy call whoever sittin in the navigator seat. Which is usually me cause I don’t feature sittin in the back with the pecans. Now, you figure pecans all right to be sittin with. If you thinks so, that’s your business. But they dusty sometime and make you cough. And they got a way of slidin around and dippin down sudden, like maybe a rat in the buckets. So if you scary like me, you sleep with the lights on and blame it on Baby Jason and, so as not to waste good electric, you study the maps. And that’s how come I’m in the navigator seat most times and get to be called Scout.