So I waited. It took a long time for a woman without a boyfriend or husband to show up, but around five in the morning she came in, sat down at the lunch counter, and ordered a cup of coffee.
She was a large black woman in jeans and a T-shirt so billowy that it didn’t even hug her large, low-hanging breasts. She wore a trucker’s cap, and it didn’t look like she had any hair under it. I had never, ever seen a black woman who dressed like a man and wore her hair cut short like a man’s in my entire life—not even on television.
I just stared and stared.
She must have felt my eyes on her, because as the waitress was refilling her cup, she turned around on her cracked red leather stool and stared back at me.
“What you looking at?” she asked me. The question wasn’t hostile. It was just a question and almost gentle in the asking.
“She don’t talk,” the waitress told her. “She been here since three a.m.”
“You want some more coffee?” the big woman asked.
I shook my head.
Now both she and the waitress were staring at me. “What you want then?” she asked.
I swallowed and worked my throat a couple of times, so that I could make sure my voice came out clear when I spoke.
But I did it. I answered, “A ride.”
. . .
Her name was Mama Jane. She was a truck driver of a certain age. And she was going to California, where she had a nephew named Nicky who was about to open a nightclub and would maybe be needing some help. Maybe I could wash dishes or something.
I found out her name in the diner after she came to sit down with me at my booth, and put out her big rough hand for a shake.
“Everybody call me Mama Jane. What they call you?”
I thought, Monkey Night, but answered, “Davidia Jones” since the monkey part of my life was over now.
“Davidia Jones,” she repeated. Then she chewed on it for a second like she liked the taste of it. “Davidia Jones. Davidia Jones. That’s some kind of handle. Black folks name they children the strangest things. You named after your daddy?”
“Kind of.”
“Kind of, huh? Where he at now?”
“I don’t know. I never knew him.”
“Okay, that’s a common story.” She raised her coffee cup in a toast. “Where’s your mama?”
“She’s at home. She’s an alcoholic. It’s going to take her a while to figure out I’m gone. And when she does, she won’t come looking for me.”
Mama Jane went quiet. Took a few more sips of her coffee. Then she asked me, “You sure about that?”
I nodded. “She ain’t that kind of mama.”
Mama Jane finished her coffee but told me, “I need one more cup. I gotta have three to get started. You don’t mind, do you?”
I didn’t say anything, because it didn’t seem like that was a question in need of a verbal answer.
The waitress came over and refilled her coffee cup. She looked from Mama Jane to me, then back at me and said, “You ain’t seriously thinking about giving this child a ride?”
The waitress was white with thin tight lips. We both waited for Mama Jane’s answer.
. . .
I found out that she was a lesbian later that night in Dallas, Texas. Mama Jane pulled into a Motel 8 right off the highway and got us a room with one queen-sized bed.
While she was in the bathroom, I looked out the dusty hotel window and saw the rates printed outside on a big rotating sign. I sat down at the little plywood desk and did the math, splitting the rate in half and calculating the tax, assuming it would be about two cents more than the Mississippi sales tax. After all, Texas was a lot bigger. Then I pulled what I owed Mama Jane out of my bra.
I had the money waiting for her when she came out of the bathroom. I tried to hand it to her, but she pushed my hand aside. “My job got this. They got to put you up in a hotel if they got you hauling shit across the country.”
I didn’t answer. I put the money away in my backpack pocket. I felt awkward now. Truth be told, I wasn’t used to people being nice to me and I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I kept folding and unfolding them on top of the desk.