A Project Reprieve
Roy Haymond
To look at Delsie walking home from her custodial job at the Rehab Center one would have thought her a male, with her broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs. A full five-foot-ten, her gait and long arms, even her close-cropped hair, gave off an air of masculinity. Only her over-large breasts stamped her as female.
There was more than a slight chill in the January air and her old high school letter-jacket, now too small for her, could hardly keep out the cold breeze. And she was weary from the routine, this going to the center to scrub floors and toilets, then walking the five blocks home to the high-rise project for her maternal responsibilities.
She shrugged as she shivered, in the mode of one who sees one day very much as another.
Immediately upon entering her two-bedroom third-floor apartment, she sensed something amiss - someone had been there, someone who had fouled the atmosphere! Instantaneously she knew what was about, but she could not let herself acknowledge what was looming; rather she postponed any recognition of what she must deal with.
She went down the hall to her mother's apartment. Her mother and five-year-old Bertha were not there. The baby, Johnny, was in his crib, just coming awake and beginning to squall. She wrapped the baby in a blanket and took him back to her own apartment. Here she placed the child in another crib.
As she returned to close her door, Harold staggered in. The smell of booze was heavy and the eyes swam in dissipation.
“Whatcha doing?” barked the out-of-place Harold, his voice thick with threat and disorientation.
“Puttin' the baby down!”
“Who baby?”
“Yours. Who you think?”
“I got Bertha; I know that! Who this?”
“This be Johnny. He borned while you away! I wrote you!”
“I ain't read no letter. What you talking about?”
“I talking about this baby. I told you before you left I was pregnant. Don't you remember? He borned while you was away!”
He swatted her with his right hand, leaving her left cheek smarting from the impact. “You been fooling around, you whore!”
She took a quick step toward him and shouted, not quite defiantly, “Look, Harold, I ain't been doing no such! I told you I was pregnant... just before they pick you up. Little Johnny borned while you was in jail. What you want I do? You made a baby and you was gone. I had Johnny and we had it hard...I never hear from you...What I suppose to do?”
“I think you fooling around. Ain't nobody going to do me that way...”
“Fooling around? How I fool around? I got two babies to feed. Mama keep them all day. I works at the Rehab Center...don't work, they ain't no house aid, and no food stamp...Look, this here your child, you can believe it if you wants to...but right now, I needs to know: what you want? You been out of jail for a week and we ain't see you, ain't hear from you...now you shows up here calling me a whore...What you want, Harold?”
“What I want? You know what I wants!”
Avenues of fear sprang through Delsie's head like so many snakes of Medusa: the very thought of this apparition taking her body was enough, but the other things were even worse.
“You come here for me? Where you been since you get out?”
“Been around. You don't need to bother about that. You still my woman!”
“But you might have them Aidses. I ain't want to fool around with that stuff!”
“I ain't got none of that...”
“How you know? What you been doing in that jail? Fooling with them little boys? And where you been since you get out? Harold, I ain't want to get messed up with that stuff...”
He took a step toward her, a look of hate and determination blasting through the bloodshot eyes. And the other fear grabbed Delsie: when he took her to bed only to try and fail, he usually became unbelievably violent - one time had resulted in a broken wrist and several cracked ribs.
But an idea, a concept, clicked in her mother-of-invention reasoning. That he had been drinking was a clearly-seen fact, but the deep smell of fatigue and empty stomach indicated more: this man had been drinking for days, and he was perhaps on drugs, too, eating little, sleeping little, and only more imbibing had temporarily kept away the sickness and delirium and pain of a withdrawal hangover!”All right, Harold, if that what you wants. But look here, I gots to get little Johnny formula ready, and we is out. I needs to run down to the store around the corner...”
“You just wants to get away, bitch! I ain't put up with that!”
“But the baby got to eat! Let me go get the stuff for his formula and then we goes to bed!”
“Hell no! You ain't going nowhere!”
Dramatically, she paced the floor for a moment. Then she planted herself before him, close, her face looking up into his.
“Harold, I can't believe you so bad you let your own little baby go hungry! How ‘bout this: you go get the stuff. It called Enfamil, little blue can, or maybe a brown can, I don't know...you can just ax them for Enfamil. I mix it and heat it and feeds the baby. You won't let me go, you go. Then we see ‘bout the other! Can you do that? You too drunk to go to the store?”
“No, I can do that.”
“Then go on. The baby beginning to cry!”
“O.K. I go. But I don't got no money with me.”
“Don't they give you some when they lets you out?”
“Yeah, but I ain't got none with me...”
“Well, I give you the money...”
She fished a five-dollar bill from a jar in the cupboard and handed it to him. “Enfamil. Remember that. Get the sixteen-ounce size. That convenience store down the street. And hurry back...”
As soon as Harold had left, she reached into the refrigerator and got several already-prepared bottles of the baby's formula. She put these in a tote bag before gathering the child in his blanket and rushing to her mother's apartment.
Her mother was in her kitchen preparing supper; five-year-old Bertha was watching TV.
The mother said, “Harold out. He been around.”
“I know. He been by.”
“What you going to do?”
“Don't know, Mama. But I sent him to the store...said I need some baby formula. I don't think he be back. I give him five dollars. Think he just pass by them people on the corner what sell that cheap whiskey?”
“No, you right, there. He get him a bottle of hootch you won't see him no more tonight. But they be other nights!”
“I know, Mama, I know. But I been thinking about that. Where he sleeping? Who he with? He headed for more trouble. Can't be long before he back in jail. And I look at him: he used to be strong, so strong I scared of him sometime. But he ain't so much no more. He slapped me a while ago, and it didn't even knock me down! I bet after he go to jail this time, he come around here and I bust his ass!”
“You talking ‘bout you chil'ren's daddy!”
“They ain't got no daddy...like I ain't had no husband...”
“Anyway, I think you right...he get a bottle and he ain't coming back tonight...”
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