A Gift From Greta

Melanie Jones

Stars beyond Nolan’s counting capability illuminated the night sky as he lay in the cool grass, arms folded beneath his head, gazing. The mosquitoes didn’t bother him much that evening either. Preferring the buffet of young men shooting dice, sweat sweetened by cognac, they swarmed the front of the house instead. Between the cotton plants and Aunt Mary’s few rows of tomatoes, Nolan had found the quietest spot in the entire yard.

Jackie Wilson’s voice blared from the back door, and the wooden house rocked on its stilts. They’d be there for another hour, mostly leaving before midnight with church services starting just after sunrise; but they’d be back on Tuesday for blues night. At ten, Nolan preferred the blues to the more popular records his friends liked getting down to. Goosebumps would rise all over his arms at the first strumming of Lucille in the same way a good gospel song could send bolts of electricity from his stomach throughout his body.

This Tuesday would be different. Greta was coming to visit. It had been five years, and he hadn’t seen her since the day she’d brought him over on the ferry to live with Big Mama. I’ll send for you soon as James and me get settled in Chicago, he remembered Greta saying. But she never did settle. Soon after Chicago James, there was Brooklyn Charlie and San Francisco Pete. His mother was what Big Mama called flighty. Nevertheless, she’d written to say that she might be passing through. That was as much as he could figure out from the little piece of stationery on Big Mama’s nightstand before he’d heard her heavy footsteps moving down the hall. He wondered what her visit might be about, but asking Big Mama for more information would result in a good slap, considering he wasn’t supposed to know about the visit in the first place. He’d remain quiet and wait.

Like most of the congregation, Nolan struggled to stifle his yawn in the presence of the Lord. The slight breeze from the swaying cardboard fans, in call and response to the heat, did little to aid in cooling the shotgun building. Wedged between Big Mama and Aunt Mary — the heat from their massive thighs baking him, Nolan shifted in protest to his silent suffering.

He welcomed Reverend Alexander’s benediction and zigzagged in and out of the brightly hued dresses and big elaborate hats once all had said amen in the sing-songy way they ended all services.

He found a spot on the church steps to sit until his grandmother and aunt finished talking to some of their friends, scooching closer upon hearing Greta’s name.

“Have you told him yet, Pearl?” asked Rosa Lee Wilson, Big Mama’s oldest friend.

“Ain’t no need in getting his hopes up. That child of mine ain’t ever gone do right by that boy. Bless his soul.”

“Um. Um. Um.” Both ladies shook their heads disagreeably.

Big Mama’s words were true. There were many visits and presents promised over the years that never made their way to Nolan. Eventually her presence found its place next to the unfulfilled excitement of Greta’s words in the back of his mind. He’d given up all hope that she’d come back and was quite fond of living with Big Mama and Aunt Mary. Moving all across the world like Greta seemed unnecessary to Nolan when everything he knew and loved was within the three blocks of Mulatto Bend. But knowing all of this, something in him still stirred. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, and Nolan wondered what she might look like and what stories she’d tell about the adventures she’d had. Tuesday was only two days away, but his anxiety was building with every passing second.

Nolan spent Monday in preparation for a visit that he was still supposed to be unaware of. Aunt Mary took him to get a haircut and across the river to go shopping in downtown Baton Rouge. A big fuss over nothing if they didn’t believe Greta was coming, Nolan thought.

Finishing off the last bit of her chocolate ice cream cone, Mary wiped its smudges from her dimpled chin. “You ever miss yo’ mama, Nolan?”

Her questioning would have been off-putting had Nolan not known that she was coming. Big Mama didn’t say Mary couldn’t hold ice water without cause. He’d been waiting for his aunt to bring her sister up in conversation. She couldn’t help it.

Brushing the itchy bits of hair from the back of his neck missed by his barber, Nolan responded, “I think about her sometimes. Wonder what she doing every now and again, but I wouldn’t say I miss her.”

“You sure use to. Mama didn’t know what to do with you when you came to live with us. You sho was a pitiful lil’ thang. Cried for three months straight. Thought you was gone flood the house.” Mary recalled with a sad smile on her smooth, round face. Stopping Nolan in his tracks to look at him, she said, “You got better though.”

They continued their walk back to Big Mama’s old Buick in silence. Nolan couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but talking about Greta with his Aunt Mary made him feel it. He’d felt it when Greta left and with every promise she failed to keep. It was a feeling that at ten years old Nolan could only feel in the music. Something lurked behind that feeling, something wonderfully upsetting. Goosebumps rose on his sun-kissed flesh at the thought of Greta again. She was like the woman from the songs he liked most. Women like his mother made men of all ages feel it.

A burnt orange Firebird occupied the Buick’s usual parking space when Mary and Nolan returned home.

“Oh, Lawd.” Mary muttered as she eased in behind the new car’s bumper. “Wait here ‘til I come back for you.” Not waiting for a response, Mary got out of the car, her red shirt dress sticking to the back of her legs as she strutted with determination quickly towards the house.

Greta ran from the front door towards the car, wearing the shortest pair of shorts that Nolan had ever seen. Her once long reddish-brown curls, now fashioned into a small afro atop her head. “Boy, you better get out that car and give your mama a hug.” She yelled in mock anger with her hands on her hips.

Unsure of what to do, he waited for Big Mama to emerge from the house. He ran past Greta and into the fullness of his Big Mama instead.

“Don’t be rude, baby. Go to your mama.” Big Mama smiled and wiped her nose on a dishrag. Nolan searched her eyes for any clue that might tell why she’d been crying but was pulled away and into the arms of Greta.

Her touch felt foreign, and Nolan deemed her too hard. He wanted to pull away and return to the soft, fleshy arms of his Big Mama, but Greta was strong and held on to him for most of the night in the same manner.

Concerned by Greta’s bony frame, Nolan wondered if maybe she’d come home because she was sick.

“Is you sick, Greta?” Big Mama asked while collecting dishes from the dining room table.

“No Mama. This is what’s in. Everybody ain’t corn-fed. You’d know that if you left here every once and a while.”

“I see enough on that television set Mary bought me and you look just as hungry as the rest of them black gals who trying to look white like that Stick girl.”

“Her name is Twiggy, Mama. Not Stick.” Greta redirected her attention toward Nolan. “You don’t think like your Big Mama, do you? You still think your mama the prettiest girl ever, don’t you?”

Nolan inspected her carefully. Her hair was too short to curl and stood on end. She smelled of smoke, and her skin appeared orange and leathery from long hours spent on the beaches of California. Her lashes resembled two tarantulas squatting on her eyelids, and the frosted white lipstick she overly applied made her look ashy.

“Yes, ma’am.” Nolan replied with averted eyes.

“And you ain’t the only one either. I met this man, Nolan, and he thinks I could be a model.”

Nolan stared blankly, waiting to hear Greta’s next destination.

“He knows a guy that knows a guy whose sister works down at Ebony Magazine, and he thinks that I can get on as a Fashion Fair Model.”

“Don’t you think you a little long in the tooth to be trying yo’ hand at modeling?” Big Mama interjected.

“No, Mama, I don’t, and neither does Michael.” Greta rolled her eyes.

She went on to tell Nolan the rest of her story. Big Mama appeared uninterested in Greta, like she’d already heard the story or similar ones from her, but she stared at Nolan intensely, waiting to hear how he’d respond to what was coming next.

“He got a real nice place out in New York City. He say I can come and stay until I start making some big money of my own to afford my own place.”

“That’s sounds nice, Greta.” Nolan replied in a monotone, looking at Big Mama curiously.

“When did you start calling me Greta? Anyway, that ain’t the best part. He got lots of space in that apartment of his and he say you just as welcome as I am.” Greta’s smile shone with elation.

Nolan’s expression remained stoic. Rescuing him from the uncomfortable situation, Big Mama chimed in, “Go ahead and wash up for bed.”

“He my boy!” Greta shouted.

Nolan pressed his ear to his bedroom door.

“You just now remembering that?” Big Mama huffed back.

“He don’t even call you mama no mo’, Greta. He don’t want to go with you!” Mary added.

“He didn’t say that.”

“He didn’t say that he did either!” Big Mama and Mary shouted in unison.

“A boy deserves to be with his mother.”

“And he got that right here in Big Mama. What you gone do when this Michael fellow leave you and the next one don’t want no woman with a child?”

“She gone bring that poor child back here to suffer all over again. That’s what she gone do.” Big Mama added.

They argued for hours until they’d run out of words to fight with. Nolan went to bed exhausted as if it had been him yelling. He felt bad for Big Mama and Aunt Mary. Greta was the kind of woman who could give women the blues too.

The next day was spent packing. Despite their best efforts, Big Mama and Aunt Mary couldn’t save him from Greta. She was bent on taking Nolan with her. Big Mama and Aunt Mary shuffled around glossy eyed but didn’t say anything contrary to Nolan about his mother or his leaving.

“Big Mama wants you to write often, Nolan.” Aunt Mary said, handing him a mountain of envelopes, already addressed and stamped.

Nolan wondered how long Big Mama had known about what seemed to him to be a sudden departure. He placed his favorite albums in his suitcase.

“Well, you know, Aunt Mary. There probably ain’t gone be too much to write about, no how.” He said, in hopes of making Mary feel better.

“New York is a big city, Nolan.” She said with false excitement. “Thank of all the big stars you gone see.”

The only stars Nolan wanted to see were the ones in Big Mama’s backyard at night, but he agreed for her benefit. “Yeah.” Nolan sighed before he continued. “I know.”

“Well, I’m gone leave you to yo’ packing.”

Nolan had been packing, unpacking, and repacking for at least an hour. Mary was right. New York was a big city, and he would have been excited about visiting if and only if it was just that. Somewhat pleased that Greta wanted him again, Nolan wished that she could want him in Louisiana. He fought the tears filling his eyes, thinking it better to act like the man he was being forced to become.

Night was approaching, and Greta still hadn’t returned from her day of visiting with old friends. We got all the time in the world to catch up, Nolan. I don’t know when I’m a see the girls again, she said to him before leaving her white lipstick on his cheek and hopping into the Firebird. 

People were coming into Aunt Mary’s in droves, and Nolan was thankful for one more Tuesday night since he didn’t know when he’d get another. Feet dangling from his stool and sipping Kool-Aid from a preserves jar, Nolan sat at the bar like an old man. He closed his eyes and listened to BB King singing to his woman about losing her good thang. Nolan’s head moved with the music. He’d never admit it, but he felt like that woman BB was singing to. He was losing his good thang.

He never wanted to leave. Mulatto Bend was home and Nolan couldn’t imagine New York being anything like it. No Aunt Mary’s Juke Joint. No cotton or tomatoes. He wanted the thick women of the Bend in all their different shades of brown and warm like the Louisiana sun.

BB King didn’t have to tell Nolan how to get the blues because he already had them. It was a deep-seated pain that tears couldn’t help free. The blues had to be nurtured like a baby in its mother’s stomach and only let out when they become too big for one person to hold on to. The blues cried for him, even if no one else knew that it was lamenting in his honor.

Aunt Mary tapped Nolan on his shoulders. “You too young to be going through it, Nolan.” She laughed at his seriousness. It was the first time he’d seen her smile all day. “Your mama need to have some words with you.”

He wasn’t aware that Greta had returned, but he followed Mary behind the bar and through the door that connected the juke joint to the kitchen of the house. Big Mama held onto a struggling Greta.

“Hey Baby. Been a little change in plans.” Big Mama released her. “Few thangs done came up and I need to take care of them before I brang you up with me. You understand, don’t you?”

Nolan understood that the man sitting behind the wheel of the Firebird wasn’t Michael, but Lawrence Collins from Georgia Avenue.

“Yeah, Greta.”

“See, I told Mama she was making a big fuss over nothing. Give me a few days and I’ll send for you.” Walking towards the front door, bags in hand, she continued, “I know you’ll just love flying on a big ole plane.”

The rest of her words he heard from the porch. Greta slid into the car. “Just keep yo’ Big Mama and aunt company for a few more days and then we’ll be together again.”

Nolan watched as the Firebird flew down the street until even its whitewall tires disappeared within a cloud of dust. His Big Mama and aunt decided to give him a few moments to himself that he did not need and went back into the house. He wasn’t disappointed that Greta had let him down again.

It was all she knew how to do. Greta didn’t need to be around Nolan to affect him. She possessed something that Aunt Mary and Big Mama did not, but he was grateful that Greta had left it with him. He wasn’t exactly sure where she was going to end up. Wherever she was headed, he was certain that she’d be giving someone else the blues too.