A Warm, Safe Place to Be

Growing up in Florida during the 1960s

In the Fall of 1988 my short story, "A Warm, Safe Place to Be" was published by AIM Magazine, a publication out of Chicago whose purpose was to “promote racial peace and harmony”. The story is autobiographical in nature, yet fictionalized. It’s born out of my family’s ritual of going to my mother’s wealthy and racist parents’ house for dinner. Their maid and cook, Willie Mae, is the protagonist of this story and she was one the sweetest souls I’ve ever met. I loved her and hated my grandmother for summoning her with a little crystal bell and dismissing her with abject distain. I was powerless to counter the abuse my friend Willie Mae ritually suffered in her domestic position, but I knew it was wrong.

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Portrait of Willie Mae by Susan Moffitt Watercolor (1988)

A Warm, Safe Place to Be

Looking through the glass I see terrible things. Webb City is in a real poor part of town and I always get sad riding through there. Boarded-up buildings I can’t believe people still live in. Little wooden houses with busted out windows. Men sitting on porches. One of them is holding a paper bag up to his mouth like he’s drinking. The bag makes me think of school lunches from home. The men look real sad, but the little kids my age make me feel the worst. Their clothes look so old and they’re playing barefoot by the railroad tracks. You can see broken glass all over the place. It’s shiny like sun on water. There’s so much of it.

“Daddy, those children are going to cut their feet.”

He pretends not to hear me. He’s in on of his moods again.

“Don’t worry about it Emily,” Mother responds.

“But I see glass from here…”

“Well, it’s not your concern.”

I can tell she’s getting mad and so I wait a couple of minutes, then I say, “Why don’t they have shoes?”

“Because your father works and theirs don’t,” she sounds really mad now.

I think of the men on the stoop. They seem sad to me, like they just lost ten baseball games in a row.

“Why don’t they work?”

“They just don’t. Probably wouldn’t even if they could.”

I couldn’t believe that!

“Oh, Mother. I they’d work if they could. I bet they want their children to have shoes, and nice clothes.”

“Emily, some people are just plain lazy.”

“They don’t look lazy, they look unhappy.”

She shot me one of her looks, but I wouldn’t stop now.

“Mother, are all black people poor?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because they belong to a lower class.”

“You mean in school?”

“No dear, I do not. I mean socioeconomic class.”

“So...so-she-oh-nom…What?”

“A lower class in society.”

“So-sigh-itty. What’s that?”

“It’s all people who live together as a group.”

“Huh?!”

“The people who live in our house make one family. All the people who live in all the houses make a kind of big family. That’s society.”

“But Mother, if all people are society how come just black people live in Webb City?”

“My God child!”

“Well, why does everybody else…”

“Emily!”

“…live everywhere else?”

“You’ll understand these things when you’re older.”

That means shut up, so I do. But there’s some things I’m not gonna understand no matter how old I grow. I’m not sure how I know this, but it’s true.

Every Saturday we pile into the car and drive to Lake Maggiore to visit Granddaddy and Grandmother. The car is a yellow Chevrolet and yellow. The ride is long, all the way across town to the old part of St. Petersburg. That’s in Florida. I have to get dressed up like we’re going to church and be on my best behavior, which means staying real quiet while the grown-ups talk, even though I’m bored and restless.

Webb City means we’re about halfway to Lake Maggiore. It’s not even a city, really. Just an old four-story drugstore that looks pretty junky. On the outside there’s a neon sign advertising a live mermaid show. When I was really little I’d get excited thinking about lovely creatures gliding all shimmery and green through the water. Then last year my friend Amy’s father took her to see it.

“You know what?” she said, “it was just some plastic dolls propped up in the fish tank!!” Boy, what a gyp…

After Webb City the houses and yards start getting nicer and there are more white people, then mostly white people. So Mother let’s me roll down the window.

“Why did we have to roll up the windows?”

No answer.

“And lock the doors?”

“That part of town is dangerous!” she says, looking genuinely scared.

It’s real hot and sticky where we live, so hot it’s hard to breathe. I lay down in the back seat and close my eyes to make the time go faster. I can’t fall asleep. Sweat keeps rolling down my face and leaving a salty taste on my lips. Our car doesn’t have air conditioning. It used to but it’s broken and we never got it fixed. Sometimes I can tell even with my eyes closed when we’re near their house. When we turn in the long driveway I can tell the way the tires sound different crunching on the gravel.

“We’re here, Emily,” my father announces, stopping the car. It’s the first thing he’s said to me since the day before yesterday.

It feels good to get out of the car and run around. The yard is huge, like the park near our house. There’s even a little forest of trees and bushes and a rose garden. Roses are hard to grow in Florida so that’s a big deal. The grass is that soft kind like a green carpet. Our grass is brown and hard and full of sandspurs.

Granddaddy hires a man who takes care of the yard. That’s all he does. Actually he hires other people to do everything for him and Grandmother. Grandmother grew up in a mansion in Louisville. That’s in Kentucky. And Grandaddy was raised in an estate in Canada. That’s a whole other country. So they’re both used to being rich and not doing anything for themselves. I bet that’s why they got married.

Grandmother comes to the back door where we’re waiting inside the screen porch. Her face is wrinkly and powdered and when she bends over for me to kiss her cheek I nearly sneeze. She has silver hair with some kind of little net around it. She always wears old lady shoes and stockings with a seam down the back and a dress just to be at home.

We all walk into the living room where Granddaddy is sitting. He always wears a suit and tie even when he’s just lying in his recliner. He’s tall and thin and talks like he knows everything. I hug him but I don’t mean it.

The one thing I like about their house is the central air-conditioning. First thing wanna do is stand over the vent and let the cold air blow up my sundress.

“Emily! Get away from there immediately!!” Mother snaps.

So I sit on the white satin brocade couch, cross my ankles and fold my hands in my lap. That’s “proper” according to my mother. It’s also all I’m allowed to do.

The kitchen door swings open and Willie Mae brings in a bunch of cokes for us all to drink. Normally I can only have coke that comes in a bottle at church during the monthly Wednesday Night Family Supper. At my grandparents house the cokes arrive on an antique silver tray in tall crystal glasses that rest on doilies like I use to make Valentines. There’s a lot to be said for drinking coke straight out of the bottle! Like not being terrified of spilling your drink on the plush carpet or breaking the hundred year old glass.

After what seems like forever Grandmother says it’s time for dinner. I’m first at the table, but I have to wait for everyone else. Grandmother nods and we all pull out our chairs at the same time, like robots, then sit down. The table setting is so confusing, even though it’s the same every time. There’s three forks, two spoons, two knives, a big plate, two little plates and a small bowl of water with a lemon slice floating in it. That’s a finger bowl. If you want to pick up your food with your fingers you have to ask permission and then use your finger bowl to clean your fingertips. The table cloth is hand crocheted, antique lace. I pray not to spill anything. Mother shoots me a withering look from across the table. I’m the only one with my napkin still on my plate. It’s folded in the shape of a bird, too pretty to unfold, but I do, and fast.

We all hold hands while Granddaddy mumbles a prayer. Everybody says “amen” but me. Grandmother picks up a small crystal bell by her water glass and rings it three times. Willie Mae materializes and begins serving us. Every time my Grandmother says something to her she responds, “Yes, ma’am”, or “Right away Miz Greenfield!”

When she comes around to fill my plate I always thank her and she smiles at me sideways, like we have a secret. She’s real big and I can’t wrap my arms around her waist. I know this because I slip away into the kitchen whenever I can and she hugs me and tells me how sweet I am. She has a deep laugh that makes the big kitchen feel small. She talks different and it’s fun to listen to her. A lot more fun than being told that children are to be seen and not held like my grandparents do all the time.

Once everybody’s plate is full, we all start eating. The food is amazing, nothing like we have at home. The vegetables are fresh and the meat is that really good kind of roast beef with the string tied around it. Plus, there’s a baked potato with real butter instead of oleo.

Breaking the long silence, my father says, “Willie Mae is sure a good cook!”

“Yes,” Grandmother sniffs, “She’s been more than adequate. For a nigger…”

Now, I don’t know this word, but I immediately feel it’s a bad word and a mean word. And Willie Mae is my friend!

Then Grandaddy starts getting wound up, as Grandmother calls it. The school board, the stock market, the president. Boring things. I could tell them how Andrea and I play deserted island and make shoes out of palm fronds, but children are to be seen and not heard.

Granddaddy starts in on my father’s job, talking louder almost yelling. I can’t swallow my food when this happens. My mother and father were fighting about this same stuff earlier at home. I could hear them from my room. “There’s a a lot more important things than getting that damned old man’s approval, which I’ll never get anyway!” he screamed.

“If you had more ambition, perhaps you’d get more approval!” came my Mother’s acid reply. “Maybe he’s right…Maybe I did marry down too far for my own good!!”

“Well maybe for your own good, you could try cleaning up this pigsty we live in!!”

“You call this LIVING???”

Then I heard a loud crash and Mother crying. I made myself real hard inside like a stone, then I crept out of my room later to see that one of the dining room chairs was smashed to pieces. I had to walk past it on my way out to the car to get here. My father did something called “speculation” and now everybody’s mad at him.

“We gave you ten thousand dollars outright!” screamed my Grandfather.

“I know, I know…it’s gone…” he whispers.

“GONE!!!" my grandparents cry out in unison.

“Yes, all of it…” my Daddy begins to cry, then sob. I look over at my mother. She looks nervous, like a little kid about to get a spanking. I thought after you grow up parents can’t punish you anymore!

“Emily, why don’t you go out to the kitchen and help Willie Mae with dessert?”

What a switch! I know it’s because of the vein bulging out of Granddaddy’s neck and my Daddy now wailing.

In the huge, sparkling kitchen I help Willie Mae scoop green balls of sherbet into glass dishes, then put a little wafer cookie on top of each one. The voices in the next room grow more and more menacing. Willie Mae starts speaking to me in a low, soothing tone, almost like she’s singing me a song.

“You know, Emily, I have a boy your same age!”

“Really?!”

“Yep,” he be seven in July.”

“My birthday’s in June!”

“That’s real close, ain’t it honey?”

“What’s his name?”

“Jimmy Lee.”

What a neat name, I thought often having wondered why Willie Mae had two names, instead of just one, like most people. And now Jimmy Lee, who’s almost my same age, with two names too.

I was going to ask her about the two names but instead asked, “Does Jimmy Lee have shoes?”

“Oh, my yes,” she chuckled the way grown-ups do when they think kids are real cute. “He has a pair of red sneakers, and a pair of regular dress shoes.”

I was real glad to hear that! Maybe those kids in Webb City had shoes too, but just didn’t have them on at the time.

“Willie Mae, could Jimmy Lee come to work with you sometime so he and I could play?”

“No, Honey, I’m afraid not. Your grandmother wouldn’t allow it.”

“Does it have to do with that mean word she called you?”

“Yeah, honey, I’m afraid so.”

Willie Mae looks real sad. It’s quiet in the kitchen. Then we hear a horrible commotion again from the dining room down the hall. A loud crash, then screaming, high and shrill, and more yelling, louder and deeper.

“Get out of here you goddamn son of a bitch!!!”

Granddaddy’s voice….

“I hate you, I HATE YOU ALL!!!” my daddy wails.

“You married a lunatic, a goddamn lunatic from the wrong side of the tracks!!” Granddaddy lashes my mother.

I began to tear up. Willie Mae folds me up in her huge arms where I cry and cry until part of her uniform is soaked.

“There, there, honey, there, there…”

Mother comes into the kitchen and looks askance at my closeness with Willie Mae. She yanks me away and pulls me to the running car where my father is waiting. He’s so upset, his face is all blotchy, his eyes wild. We get in. Mother says nothing, just stares straight ahead. I curl into a little ball on the baseboard of the back seat. Daddy tears out of the driveway. It sounds like someone’s throwing gravel at the car. He turns wide and swerves onto the road in the wrong lane as horns are blaring everywhere. I bite my fist.

“MIKE!!!” my mother screams.

“You don’t like, huh? HUH! How about this?? You like THIS???” He throws the wheel all the way right, then all the way left as our bodies slam side to side.

“Or this? How about this???”

He floors the gas to pass on a narrow two lane road, as an on-coming car looms suddenly from over a small rise. I close my eyes, just before it happens. The cars crash. The world goes black.

I wake up, but not in my own bed. I try to move but I can’t. I see a tube running from my nose into a bottle over my head. There’s more tubes coming out of my arms. One of my legs is in a huge, white cast, hoisted over my head with wires. In the corner a man and woman in white coats are talking softly, thinking I can’t hear them.

“The prognosis is good. Thank God she was crouched on that baseboard! Physical therapy is going to be a long haul.”

“ We’re going to have to tell her about her parents…”

So. They’re dead. Somehow I already knew. But I thought when someone dies you’re supposed to feel really bad. Especially if it’s your own father and mother. Yet looking down at all the tubes and machines and cast on my leg I feel my heart close into a fist.

“No one’s come forward. She has grandparents in the vicinity, but they haven’t even been in to see her.”

I don’t want to see them either.

“We’ve got plenty of time to figure out custody. She’s gonna be here quite some time…”

The voices move farther and farther away, then fade into a dream. In the dream I’m completely well when Willie Mae comes to get me in the hospital. I rush into her arms.

“I got a surprise for you, Chile,” she whispers in my ear.

She walks me out into the hall where Jimmy Lee is standing shyly. He’s a real cute little boy with twinkling brown eyes. I like him right away.

“Emily, Jimmy Lee is gonna be your honorary brother now…”

“Oh, Willie Mae!! Does that mean you’re gonna watch over me???”

“Yes, Chile,” she laughs, “You always one step ahead of me…”

I’m jumping up and down, and Jimmy Lee and I are spinning each other round and round. Willie Mae is laughing, then I see she’s crying too.

“Honey,” she wipes her tears with the back of her soft hand, “I just love you so much…”

Then the three of us are in this little wooden cottage late at night. There’s an open fireplace and we roast marshmallows on long sticks. Jimmy Lee and I trade “knock, knock, who’s there?” jokes until we both get very sleepy. Willie Mae tucks us in our bunk beds with Jimmy Lee on the top bunk. She sings us a lullaby as she smooths our covers, her voice merging with the sound of waves and the breeze blowing through the open window.

“Willie Mae?” I ask, half-asleep.

“Yes, lamb?” she whispers.

“I’m safe now, right??”

“Yes, you safe forever…”

My new home, a warm, safe place to be. Not a real home, just a dream I have to wake up from. But when I actually open my eyes, the real Willie Mae is sitting by my bed! Her eyes are all swollen and puffy, she’ been crying…

“Willie Mae…” I whisper, still unsure if this is real.

“Emily!” she beams back at me, leaning forward in her chair to take my hand in hers.

“I was just dreaming about you and me and Jimmy Lee living together in a little house. It was so real, Willie Mae, I didn’t think I was in the hospital anymore.”

“Emily, you are quite a dreamer!” she exclaimed.

“What do you mean, Willie Mae?”

It looked like she was trying to say something very difficult.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” I said real quick, getting it over for her.

She shakes her head “yes” and folds her other hand over mine.

“Your granddaddy and the missus are going to take you in honey.”

“But I don’t like them and they don’t like me!!!” I react desperately.

“I know Emily, but they just old. Kids take a lot to be around and they’re just set in their ways. But here’s the good news, since they’re too old to tend to you, they want me to do it for them. Me and Jimmy Lee gonna live in the old carriage house. They’re hiring someone to remodel it into an apartment. It even gonna have a woodstove to cook on. Jimmy Lee’s cat is gonna love to curl up nearby…

“So we’ll see each other every day??” I ask excitedly.

“Yes honey, you’ll have your own room in the big house but I’m gonna make breakfast for you and Jimmy Lee everyday and drive you to your schools and all your appointments and activities.”

“Won’t he and I be in same school?”

“No, Emily. Your grandparents are sending you to private school. Jimmy Lee’s school is a bit rough and tumble.”

All at once my eyes get stinging and hot. “I’m never gonna see my mother and father ever again, am I?”

“No, not on this earth, anyway.”

“Didn’t they love me, Willie Mae?! Does God even love me?? Am I that bad???”

“Emily, your parents had problems that was none of your doin’. I love you, God loves you, and you gonna start loving yourself. God called your parents home, honey. Now you got a whole life ahead of you, that’s yours and yours alone, to make the best of, any way you can.”

“I’m so scared, Willie Mae…”

“I know, honey,” she whispers as she reaches over to sooth my hair.

Suddenly, I am real sleepy, can barely keep my eyes open.

“I’m so tired, Willie Mae.”

“Of course you are…”

“I’m so glad you’re gonna take care of me…”

The last thing I remember is how big her hands are, surrounding mine, and how small and safe and warm I feel. Then she said something I didn’t quite hear. I think she started singing…