Cynthia Bond - Ruby

They were the calling cards she kept. She’d been given the first in 1939 at the Friends’ Club in Neches County, Texas, when she was only six. Ruby set the quarter on top of her pubic hair as the water rose covering her belly. The water reached her breasts, her heart. Ruby could hear Abby clunking around outside the room. She heard her open the cupboard, heard a glass shatter in the kitchen sink. She imagined Abby drinking straight from the bottle. Then Ruby let her mind wander past a gated East Texas lot in Neches.

THE FRIENDS’ Club was comprised of abandoned offices of corrugated tin. There was no grass for miles, as if a large boot had stomped its grilled sole upon the land and demanded nothing grow. Miss Barbara had been the hostess. She was plaster white and hard, poured wet into her skin dress and solidified in gooey mounds. She wore her inky wig high. Frost pink lips circled a gnash of rotting incisors. She smiled with her lips tight in camouflage, until some random act of cruelty caused her to laugh, exposing the corrosive brown. This was the woman who Ruby was handed over to periodically when Papa Bell was sick, and then more often after he died.

The first time the Reverend Jennings had taken her to Neches, she was dressed in her Sunday pink fluff dress, black patent leather shoes with lacy socks. Her Grandmother had heeded the Reverend’s suggestion that Ruby work that summer for a nice White woman who ran a children’s boarding school in Neches. Ruby would get paid for keeping the younger ones company and bringing in wood, washing dishes and such. She was to come back for a visit home every two weeks, then back to work until school started. Grandma Silvia had pressed her hair and tied it in a fancy bun on her head and packed a satchel with clothes and a traveling supper. The Reverend told her he was going to Nacogdoches to preach at the Faith Temple Revival and wouldn’t mind at all dropping Ruby off in Neches.

After an hour of driving they stopped in Zavalla, near Rayburn Lake, to have their supper. Ruby felt nervous being with the Reverend but he was very polite and asked the kinds of questions grown-ups like to ask. They talked about the Reverend’s children, Ephram and Celia. Ruby asked if they went to Lincoln Elementary School where she was to start in the fall. The Reverend said that they did. Ruby ate the drumstick and corn fritter that her Grandma had made her. The Reverend shared a cup of fresh milk that tasted funny and they talked until Ruby’s eyelids got so heavy they dropped right down to her cheeks. She fell into a crashing sleep.

When she woke up from a very strange dream, the sky was pitch black and the Reverend was sitting across from her, smiling.

He said she seemed over-tired, so when she’d taken a nap, he just let her go on sleeping. The Reverend packed his tin and poured what was left in the milk bottle into the earth.

They had driven another hour to Miss Barbara’s, then turned down a crooked dirt road in the woods towards an old building with a red porch light. There was a flag nailed on the side that Miss Barbara later told her stood for “the Confederate States of America.”

A strange little White man was waiting outside. He was just a head or so taller than Ruby, but his legs were shorter. He wore a plaid blue cap but his hands and boots were dirt black. When he saw the Reverend he gave a nod and knocked once on the porch door.

Miss Barbara appeared. Her whole body seemed to be smoking when she opened the door. She took a puff of her cigarette and rubbed Ruby on the head. The tiny man disappeared.

“Hey, y’all.”

Ruby just nodded, awestruck by the sight of her.

The Reverend introduced Ruby to Miss Barbara, then the two adults took a few steps away from the porch and whisper-spoke, close, his mouth almost on her ear. Ruby watched Miss Barbara hand him an envelope. The Reverend looked inside then Ruby heard him say quiet, “You short by ten.”

RUBY MADE little waves in the bathtub with her knees. She picked up her washcloth and a bar of soap. A brindle-brown hair curled on it. Ruby lathered the cloth and washed the makeup from her face, then under her arms. She’d forgotten to put on her shower cap and accepted that tomorrow her hair would be nappy. Ruby slid down and dunked her head under the water.

Miss Barbara was there just under the surface, offering Ruby her hand.

HER NAILS were bright pink and long like possum claws so Ruby hung back. When she smiled it frightened her more. Ruby could not stop staring at her teeth. It looked like a rat had gnawed at their dark edges.

“Gawd don’t like a scaredy-cat.” Her voice was high and sweet like they were old friends. Then she winked at Ruby and held out her hand again. Since there was no place else to hold on to Ruby gave her two fingers and Miss Barbara pulled her into the building. The room was a cloud of smoke, as if the chimney flue had been closed. Then there was the stink of it. It smelled just like a well that a water moccasin had died in, with something sticky sweet sprayed over it. The ashtrays were full of butts and empty Coca-Cola bottles sat beside them. The lights buzzed and flicked over her head and a gray sofa sat in the middle of the floor like a cat with crumbs on its whiskers. Magazines were spread out on the coffee table, Life, Look, Movie Time . A half-eaten sandwich let Ruby remember that she was hungry. Ruby didn’t know for sure but it seemed to be some kind of a waiting room, but Miss Barbara kept walking through into a long dark hallway. Ruby felt her chest moving fast as she followed. She felt like she was getting smaller the farther she went into the hall. The smell got stronger. The floor was sticky and black under her feet. There were doors on either side, most closed. The first open one Ruby walked by she saw a little White girl’s legs dangling from the edge of a bed. Ruby peeked around and saw her face. She looked like a baby doll Ruby had seen in the window of the Newton five-and-dime, same blue eyes and long blond hair except the girl’s was tangled high and wild. She looked bored until she noticed Ruby and stuck out her tongue.

Miss Barbara patted Ruby’s back to hurry her along. There were sounds coming from behind the closed doors. Cottony voices that made Ruby’s throat close tight. Miss Barbara led her to a little room then spoke to the smoke rising up from her hands.

“This here’s your room sweetheart. Bathroom’s down the hall but seeing how you’re Colored you’ll have to use the one outside. Mighty inconvenient if you ask me, but thems the rules, you just got to ask permission first. And don’t go touching this here lamp, it lets folks know what’s what, all right? I’m gonna call you Bunny. You got any questions just ask for me, Miss Barbara.”

She gave Ruby a good long look then she walked away. Ruby was alone in the tiny room. Something about the alone took all the air out of her so she fell down to her hands and knees, gulping in and out. She got light-headed until her gut told her to slow her heart. Ruby put her hands over her chest and pushed in there, stroking like she would a cat and after a time her heart slowed itself to normal. She kept doing this as she took in the room. It was almost empty save a strange bunk bed with its top half sawed away. That is when Ruby decided she was having a dream. Then the nightstand was a dream nightstand. With a dream ugly lamp without a shade. A dream empty candy dish beside it too. The dream walls were tall and dark yellow with paper bubbling all the way up to the ceiling.

After a while Ruby grew tired of standing and started biting her mouth. She’d discovered it was a way to pass the time while she sat in church, nibbling at the soft inside of her mouth. She placed her crooked finger on the outside and pushed the soft inside into her teeth. Then she stopped because she could feel it, and in a dream you can’t feel anything. Her tummy grumbled a make-believe dreamy rumble, then started flipping and her legs got tired so she sat in the only place there was to sit. Climbing up onto the bed and letting her legs hang over the edge, her shoes thumping lightly on the wooden frame. When the door creaked. Ruby’s heart pushed up into her mouth.