Writing to Save a Life. John Edgar Wideman
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out the door. Slams it behind him. She can allow her arms to relax, her fists to drop to her sides. Wipe her fingers on her apron. Finish her thought. A baloney sandwich for your lunch break at Argo Corn Products, Louis, with my daddy and all the other colored men carrying sammiches fixed by wives, mothers, women who buy cold cuts from the A & P with money from Corn Products paychecks.
Baloney. Three paper-thin, pink slices between four slices of white bread. I wish like you wish Louis it could be country ham or turkey or roast beef or half a fried chicken with potato salad, greens and biscuits Louis but you know good and well Louis you only give me baloney money and plenty of times I don’t even see baloney money. Do my best. Spread margarine on bread then mustard and mayonnaise, some ketchup if we have ketchup in the house. When I press the slices together, careful not to press too hard, and get the crusts messy. Wipe stuff from the knife back inside the bread so I don’t waste. It’s baloney today Louis not one of those mustard and mayonnaise days, so consider yourself lucky today, man, and yes I know you work hard Louis and I know you want more and I truly believe you deserve more and I know you think the only way you can get more is card playing and shooting dice Louis and you lose the little bit we have and you don’t bother to come home at night like there’s nothing here to come home to I guess you think Louis with the cupboard bare and my tired, bare face up in your face, my tears, my mouth all twisted up to holler at you when you come in here empty-handed and maybe you’re shamed, maybe my tired body not enough for you, just good for scrubbing floors, washing your clothes, and even with everything I do around here to make a decent home Louis sometimes I believe it means nothing to you, home no place special in your mind, slinking in here with your hands empty when the money’s gone and you can’t even give me the little bit I need to feed you and feed myself so my body can feed my child, your child, Louis, our baby I carry every day God sends here and when you’re not home I’m here day and night carrying your child Louis and today it’s a baloney and bread sammich Louis and roll your big eyes at me if you need to but what else you think it’s going to be.
I can hear you mock me down at Corn Products, see you ball up the paper I take my time to fold to make nice for you and hear you fuss at the sandwich I made and I wish wish maybe just once Louis you could try not to tear the wax paper, not crumple it up and toss it in the trash at work. I wish one day you would save wax paper I wrap your sandwich in. Why can’t you for once just fold the wax paper up neatly like a person folds a nice letter to slip in an envelope and bring it back home in the bag and I could use bag and paper again and it would save a little money, Louis, but that’s not the only reason why.
Little Mississippi. Mamie Till say it like she proud. Argo, Illinois, but we call it Little Mississippi, she say. So many of us from down there come up here to live. On Mama’s street lots of family. Aunt Marie. Uncle Kid. June Bug. Uncle Crosby. Then next block it’s Aunt Babe and Uncle Emmett and Great-Uncle Lee Greene. Mama and them started up Argo Temple Church of God in Christ and Sunday morning it’s Webb, Mississippi, all over again right here in Argo.
Louis Till shuts his eyes to hide from her, hide what he’s thinking. He ain’t no country ass Webb ass Mississippi ass goddamn Negro. He shadowboxes. Speed bag blippety-blip-blip. Fists a blur. He’s from Missouri not no goddamn lynch niggers Mississippi. Ain’t no damn cotton fields out where he come from. Day he leaves New Madrid he looks through a dirty bus window at fields of something growing and truth is he don’t know what the fuck it supposed to be. Maybe corn for Corn Products. Alagra syrup and Mazola cooking oil and margarine. Argo starch with that green and yellow Indian man on the box look like he a ear of corn. They make every damned thing from corn. Corn they grow out west and he sees flying green fields, flying Indian man boxes, flying speed bag. Opens his eyes, nods at this Mamie and hopes she’s done talking that dumb country ass shit she’s talking. Asks his self why Mississippi Negroes never get enough of other Mississippi Negroes night or day. Sure won’t ask her.
Everybody white as snow out in Missouri, Louis Till would like to say to Mamie if he could. But there are some Negroes out there because here he is black in Argo, Illinois, so got to be some black like me back in Missouri. She know the name of her people come up here, names of her people down there, all her people names and he don’t know one, not one of his people. No names. Only Louis Till. Orphan. No middle initial. No people. What I’m spozed to do, girl, with all those names you saying. Not my names. Not my church. Not my people. Got none. Got one name, Till. Louis Till. Me. My people. My name.
Alma, my mama’s name. Alma Gaines Carthan, Mrs. Till explains in her book, raised me close up under her so when I met Louis I was innocent about the world. Mama never talked to me about female things. Once a boy stole a kiss when we were playing in the school yard. Shook me up so much I ran straight to Mama when I got home from school. Mama, I’m pregnant, Mama. She’s shook up, too, hugs me, both us crying. Then I tell her about the boy kiss me and she look at me like I’m crazy. Smacks me hard. Whap. Girl, you ain’t pregnant. I don’t stay dumb long but the way Mama raises me keeps me dumb long enough to think Louis Till real smart. Louis good looking and been out in the world on his own two feet his whole life so Louis seem to a girl like me like he knew just about everything. Swept me off my feet, you could say. Mama surprise me when she say Yes you may go with Louis Till to get ice cream. My first date with Louis. First date with anybody. A walk over to Kline’s Deli and Ice Cream Parlor.
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