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I waited for a cab on the curb, looking at my reflection in the filthy waters of the gutter. My eyes watered again, and that time I let them, hiding my tears with the rainwater.
A cab pulled up, and I settled myself down in the back seat. “Destination, ma’am?” he asked me, his voice devoid of the Georgian accent the rest of us possessed.
I hesitated — dreadfully —and then I said, “Take me to Waters Avenue, please.”
The drive was wet and long, and by the time I arrived, the sky had darkened with storm clouds. It made me think of the end times, of an ascending beast with an open, hungry mouth.
Jimbo’s was a black-owned restaurant, one of a dozen in the city in that time. The cabbie dropped me off outside, as the rain became a downpour, and the streetlamps came on, lighting my way. Even from the outside, Jimbo’s was bright, loud, and boisterous. I walked inside, taking off my hat, and was assailed by the raucous sound of a live band at the far end of the restaurant. It was dimly-lit, the tables crowded with mostly blacks. I felt, immediately, the outsider. Several people looked up at me, some of them smiling kindly, others staring as though I came to wreck their good time. A hostess met me at the door, and I told her I was looking for Doctor Buzzard.
Nodding, swinging her hips gently to the beat of the band, she led me to a door on the other side of the restaurant, past the tables of customers waiting for their meals or gustily digging into enormous plates of barbequed meat, fresh salads, and fried potatoes. I could smell garlic, onions, smoked meat — even in my miserable state, my stomach growled.
The hostess opened the door for me, and gestured for me to go inside. The room beyond was dark and reeked of tobacco smoke. It was filled almost entirely with a great wooden desk, behind which sat a thin black man wearing a ratty gray suit and smoking a cigarette.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“I was told… You are Doctor Buzzard?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled and snubbed out his cigarette in a rather full ashtray. With a long-fingered hand he gestured to the chair across from him. “What can I do for you?”
“I want a baby.”
“Is that right? You married?”
“Yes, for three years. But we’ve been unable to conceive. I was hoping you might have something for it.”
He nodded. “Might be I do. But can you pay for it?”
“I can pay,” I said, clutching my purse and my hat. “I can.”
“Well, all right, then,” he said. “Let’s get to business.”
He went to a cabinet behind him and rifled through it for a good time before he returned to the desk clutching a large envelope. “Take one every day until you catch pregnant,” he said, handing it over. In turn I handed him a check for two hundred dollars.
When I got home, well after dark, Herbert waited for me in the kitchen. He greeted me with a strong hug and pecked me on the cheek. “Where’ve you been, Mama?”
“I went to a show with Marjorie,” I said, kissing him back. “By the way, she asked if she could borrow about two hundred dollars for her mother-in-law’s hospital bills. I wrote her a check — was that all right, dear?”
“Of course, Carolyn. I’m always willing to help your friends.”
I smiled, and went to the stove to start cooking. “You’re a sweet man, Herbert Cooper. How about franks and beans for your supper?”
“Sounds fantastic.”
That evening, before I joined Herbert in our bed, I sneaked downstairs to my purse, where I’d hid the envelope I got from Doctor Buzzard. Inside were a few dozen round white pills. I pinched one between my fingertips and swallowed it dry. As it slid down my throat, I whispered a prayer to God to give me a baby. Let the pills work, I prayed. Let me catch pregnant. I crawled in bed and made love to my husband, kissing him furiously with the desperate hope that a baby would make me whole.
~ ~ ~
A few weeks passed. In that time my hair grew thinner, and began to fall out in my sleep. Herbert noticed it, too, and chalked it up to stress, which I suppose was at least part of the cause. My skin began to yellow, and grew dry and chapped. One day I peeled a patch of it from my forearm and broke down crying in the supermarket.
I might have weathered this easily, if it had resulted in a child. But weeks after I’d begun taking the pills, I woke one morning to find I’d gotten my monthly blood.
I left Herbert sleeping in our bed and stripped out of my nightgown. Quietly, I stepped into the shower and turned on the water as hot as I could stand. It seared my cracked skin, flaking off bits of me and rushing them down the drain along with bits of my hair. I stood motionless in the shower until suddenly my heart wrenched in my chest and I fell to my knees, sobbing. My cries wracked my chest and I shook, the water enveloping me entirely.
About Katherine L.P. King
