The Upper Room

Book 1: Mama Ruby Novel

by Mary Monroe

Genres: African American; African American Women's Fiction; Family Life; African American Romance

Synopsis

The “magnificent, funny, and terrifying” debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of God Don’t Like Ugly (The San Francisco Chronicle).
 
Mama Ruby’s known for taking things that aren’t rightfully hers, like her best friend’s stillborn infant, who she brought back to life and christened Maureen. She’s also rumored to have done away with her husband. Some fear her, others try their best to avoid her. But Mama Ruby doesn’t pay them any mind. Not when she’s got the one gift God gave her—her precious baby girl.
 
But growing up with a mama like Ruby is enough to make any half-sane girl wish for something—anything—else. And when Maureen gets the chance to explore the “real” world, you can bet she’s going to take it . . . and run like hell.
 
“[An] engaging debut novel . . . The dialogue and setting are reminiscent of Zora Neale Hurston, but the story has a bizarre, violent edge la Stephen King . . . a candid portrayal of the cold-blooded yet fascinating Mama Ruby.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“A chilling story that is bound to astound Monroe’s fans.” —Booklist
 
Praise for Mary Monroe
 
“An exceptional writer and phenomenal storyteller!” —Kimberla Lawson Roby, New York Times bestselling author
 
“A remarkable talent.” —Chicago Sun-Times
 
“Monroe is a masterful storyteller.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

Release date: April 1, 2011

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

Dotted with thick forests of gray cypress, tulip, and magnolia, the territory known as Florida rests vaingloriously amid opalescent southern waters. Wild, long-stemmed flowers sway gently in the summer breeze, as damp moss that seems to fall from the sky clings to the trees. Along the Tamiami Trail across Florida’s Everglades, alligators sun themselves on the banks, ready to scramble into the muddy water at the slightest provocation.

Maureen Montgomery was born in Silo, near the Everglades, on a humid evening in July during dog days, that period of inactivity between early July and early September when the sultry summer weather comes to the northern hemisphere. It was so warm that day that the lazy alligators, seduced by pleasure, lay lined up along the swamp banks in orderly fashion, waiting.

In the midst of the swamp stood a crudely built shanty. Inside, on a living room sofa, lay a woman who was almost as big around as she was tall. Ruby Montgomery, wearing a long, shapeless black flannel duster, rested on her side sipping her twelfth can of beer that day, a thirty-year-old black woman with a round face, small brown eyes, heavy black eyebrows, and generous lips. She had a nose that was too wide for her to be considered handsome.

Her house smelled of boiled pork and steamed cabbage. She had just lit the coal-oil lamps, and the dim light illuminated the walls of the living room with huge distorted shadows. The furniture was cheap and shabby, but everything was neatly arranged, for Orderliness and Godliness were part of southern tradition. An immaculate home, no matter how humble and plain, would surely please the Lord, it was preached in southern churches. Ruby tried to live up to the Lord’s expectations, most of the time.

Outside, a chorus of barking coon dogs challenged the sweet calls of a remarkably fine lot of little birds: the mockingbird, the blue jay, the woodpecker. In the sky above, a broad-winged turkey buzzard made a swooping, whistling sound. Not too far away, in a desolate swamp, a panther cried plaintively beneath the hot Florida sun. In the dense huckleberry patch beyond the palmetto jungles to the north, a small black bear ambled about in search of its mate. The day was coming to a dramatic close; now only a sleeve of orange sunlight separated the horizon from the heavens, and darkness was descending rapidly. A great hoot owl, the nocturnal lord of the South, perched anxiously atop a moss-draped tree outside Ruby’s ramshackle house, a house almost hidden behind a knot of jasmine bushes. The hoot owl circled the house twice, then reluctantly returned to the moss-draped tree and waited.

The knocking at the front door was low at first. Ruby sat up on the sofa, annoyed by the noisy creatures outside. The knocking added to her irritation.

“Virgil!” she yelled.

There was no answer. Ruby waited a full minute before speaking again.

“I wonder where that simple boy of mine is,” she said to herself. She swallowed the last of the beer, draining the can to make sure she didn’t miss a drop of the precious beverage, and wiped her liver-colored lips with the tail of her duster. “Oomph . . . wonder where my teeth could be,” she murmured, looking around the room. She carefully lifted a mayonnaise jar lid from the floor. In it, a pair of dull, pink-gummed false teeth lay upside down. Ruby examined the teeth, looking at them for a long time before clumsily inserting both plates in her mouth. She clamped down and ground rhythmically, securing the teeth in place. “Now,” she said, as if proud of her accomplishment.

“Virgil!” Ruby yelled again, looking around the room. She felt her chest, where she carried a cross and a switchblade at all times.

A frail, light-skinned boy of eleven, with gray eyes and wavy black hair, appeared in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. He was a reasonably attractive child with a small nose and thin lips. His square, angry face displayed a continent of dark brown freckles.

“What you want now, Mama Ruby? Seem like everytime I get me in a comfortable position, you start to meddle me. Virgil, get me a beer. Virgil, let the dog outside. Virgil, get me a beer. Virgil, change the channel on the TV set. Virgil, get me a beer—”

“Shet up, boy,” Ruby said, slapping her thigh with her hand and stomping her foot.

“Yes, ma’am,” Virgil muttered. His denim overalls were way too loose for his slender frame. He was shoeless, and his long, dusty feet were hard and reptilian, with curled toenails almost two inches long.

“Somebody at the door, sugar. Go answer it. I’m too tired to get up.”

“Mama Ruby, I’m tired too. And I ain’t your slave,” Virgil whined. “You been pesterin me all evenin.”

“Answer the door, boy.”

“But, Mama Ruby—”

“It liable to be that ole bill collector from the grocery store again. Or the candy man what we owe for the peanut brittle. Could even be old man Parker comin to collect rent, which we ain’t got.”

“It could be just about anybody, Mama Ruby. You know how you is,” Virgil said.

Ruby remained silent for a moment, thinking about what her son had said as if it were a startling revelation. She looked at him and sighed, shrugging her huge shoulders and shaking her head slowly.

“Praise the Lord.” Ruby set the empty beer can on the floor and rose up from the sofa with great difficulty. Virgil ran across the room to assist her. He grabbed her arm to steady her, almost falling himself, for even with years of practice, balancing this elephantine woman was no easy feat. The boy’s arms ached and he gasped.

“Have mercy on my soul,” he said, cursing his strain.

“Thank you, son.” Ruby smoothed her duster along the sides of her thighs. “Now, go answer the door. Tell whoever it is I’m at the church or somethin. I’m sho nuff tired and I don’t want to see no more human beins this evenin.” Ruby waddled swiftly across the room on into the kitchen. Virgil giggled and tiptoed to the front window. He pulled back the drapes and peeked out.

“Mama Ruby, I don’t see nobody!” he shouted over his shoulder.

The knocking continued, louder.

“Who it is, Virgil?” Ruby hollered from the kitchen, peeking from behind a large white cabinet that sat next to the sink. “Ax who it is, boy!”

“Who it is?!” Virgil shouted toward the door.

“It’s me, yall.” It was the small, whining voice of a girl child.

“In the name of the Lord! What you want this time of evenin, Alice Mae? I just left your house a little while ago. What you lookin for now, trouble?”

“If she is, she come to the right place!” Ruby roared, walking back into the living room. She stood in the middle of the floor with her arms folded.

“My mama say to send Mama Ruby to her. She sho nuff sick. The devil done put somethin on her a doctor can’t take off,” the voice outside said.

“Sho nuff?” Virgil asked. He lifted the window wide enough to stick his head out.

“My mama sick as a dog. She say what she got she wouldn’t wish on Judas. She need Mama Ruby. I think she fixin to up and die,” Alice Mae replied.

“Come on in this house, sweetie,” Virgil said. “Come on in before them mosquitoes eat you alive.” He closed the window and went to open the door. A tiny, fair-skinned black girl of four with thick auburn hair stood timidly on the porch. She had her thumb in her mouth and it was obvious she had been crying. There were tear streaks on her sand-covered face and her nose was red and snotty.

“Un-ass that thumb, girl! You want your lips to end up lookin like goldfish lips?” Virgil bellowed, stomping his foot. “Do you?”

“No,” the child said, removing her thumb from her mouth. She had on a soiled flower-sack smock and a pair of man’s tennis shoes. She was thin, but uncommonly pretty. Her nose was aquiline and her lips narrow. She had large, light blue eyes with long thick black lashes that gave her face an angelic appearance. Her father was an Irish grocery store owner in Miami whom her mother had had problems paying on time.

“Come on in the house, and praise the Lord,” Ruby said.

Alice Mae stumbled in. As soon as she was close enough, Ruby leaned down and wiped her nose with the tail of her duster. “Now, praise the Lord like I told you.”

“Praise the Lord,” Alice Mae sighed mechanically.

“Bless your soul. You ought to give thanks and praise every day. That way, you’ll be blessed. Now, what’s the matter with your mama? Her baby’s fixin to come, ain’t it?” Ruby said. “I knowed today was the day!”

“Yes ma’am,” Alice Mae agreed, nodding her head vigorously. She stood watching with interest as Ruby ran across the floor and stepped into a pair of limp, flat brown moccasins sitting near the back of the room. The whole floor shook when Ruby moved across it. Virgil now occupied the sofa and lay with one leg tossed carelessly across the arm.

“Get your leg off the arm of my good couch, boy,” Ruby growled, glaring at him. She sighed and brushed off her duster as Virgil obeyed silently. She pulled a red bandanna from the pocket of her frock and tied it neatly around her thick, knotty black hair. “Boy, find me my teeth.”

“Good gracious alive, Mama Ruby! You already got your teeth in,” Virgil said. Ruby felt around inside her mouth with her finger.

“Oh.”

“Mama Ruby, can I play with your teeth?” Alice Mae asked.

“Say what? Girl, you must be out of your mind! My teeth ain’t nothin to play with!” Ruby shouted, frightening the child. Alice Mae turned quickly to Virgil, whose eyes darted from side to side.

“But Virgil let me play with em all the time when you get drunk and they fall out,” Alice Mae said.

Ruby gasped and ran across the floor with her fist poised. She slid her knuckles across the side of Virgil’s face.

“Aaaarrrggghhh!” he screamed, leaping up from the sofa.

“Don’t you never mess with my teeth no more,” Ruby told him, shaking her finger in his face. Tears slid down Virgil’s cheeks as he whimpered softly, rubbing the side of his face.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. He turned to Alice Mae and gave her a murderous look.

“And you better not tetch a hair on Alice Mae’s head for tellin me. That clear?”

“Yes, Mama Ruby,” came the meek reply.

“Mama Ruby, yall got any more goobers?” Alice Mae inquired.

“In the pantry, lamb. In the same bowl with the pecans and nigger toes,” Ruby replied. She leaned down to pick up a broom off the floor and used it to chase a hen from the living room into the kitchen. “Virgil,” she continued, on her way out the door. “You tend to my pans on the stove. Don’t you let my cabbage and salt pork burn. And you might as well keep Alice Mae here with you. She’ll just be in the way while I’m tendin to her mama, with all them other kids there already. You hear me, boy?” Instead of answering, Virgil waved his hand at Ruby as she rushed from the house and off the porch. Her big heavy feet ground into the sand as she lurched across her front yard to the narrow pathway leading to the other side of the bayou where Othella Johnson lived, Alice Mae’s mother and Ruby’s best friend.

Ruby, the seventh daughter of a preacher, and Othella, the illegitimate daughter of a notorious Cajun queen, had been best friends since childhood. Both had been born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, and had used World War II as an excuse to drop out of school, leave home at age fifteen, and latch onto servicemen.

“My mama told me to my face, when you get through with me, Othella, I’m goin to have a mess on my hands,” Ruby told Othella during their train ride to New Orleans in the winter of 1941. “Mama say we ain’t goin to find us no soldier-man husbands.”

“We goin to live it up first,” Othella said. “Then I’ll find us the best husbands looks can buy.”

A stout teenager, who had been carrying a switchblade since the age of eight, Ruby realized the advantages of her association with Othella. Othella was beautiful and clever, a resourceful young girl often accused of having “white folks’ sense.” Drawn by her beauty and brains, men and money came easily to Othella. But it was Ruby’s brawn and villainy that kept Othella out of serious trouble.

“Ruby Jean Upshaw, I am fixin to show you how to live! When I get through with you, you ain’t goin to know your head from your feet. I ain’t got all this Cajun blood in me for nothin. First off, I got a notion we could make a killin if we could get set up in one of them sportin houses in the District soon as we blow into New Orleans. I know this old Irish madam name Miss Mo’reen my mama use to turn tricks for. Old Miss Mo’reen could probably use a couple of brown cookies like us, huh?”

“Sho nuff!” Ruby said eagerly.

Now New Orleans was a wild town and the bordellos were booming with business. But it was Othella’s exotic beauty—golden skin, large black eyes, slim body, and long black hair—that the District madams were interested in, not Ruby’s plain, moon-shaped face, short knotty hair, and bell-shaped body.

“You get us a job yet?” Ruby asked, greeting Othella just returning to the small, dark room they had rented in a musty boardinghouse on St. Jacques Square. They had been in town four days introducing themselves around. Aware that Ruby was a handicap, but not telling her, Othella made Ruby stay in the room while she visited the madams who had not yet rejected them. Because once the madams saw Ruby, they lost interest in Othella. Finally, after a week, fifty-four-year-old Maureen O’Leary took them in. Realizing what a salable package Othella was, and recalling all the business her mother had brought in, Maureen gladly accepted Ruby into her house as part of the deal.

“How come you didn’t come to me first, Othella?” Maureen asked, running her pale fingers through Othella’s long dark hair.

“I guess I wanted to start at the bottom and work my way up, Miss Mo’reen,” Othella confessed. “But it wasn’t so easy, me gettin Ruby work too. . . .”

“Well . . . don’t worry about her yet. Lord knows she ain’t no bathin beauty . . . feet like pie pans . . . fat . . . woo!” Miss Maureen exclaimed, shaking her head.

But Ruby surprised them; she became popular among the male visitors. It was not long before Ruby became Maureen’s favorite girl.

“Ruby, you got spunk. You goin to go a long way in life. I’m so glad Othella brought you out here to me,” Miss Maureen informed Ruby after one busy week.

After only three months, Ruby and Othella left Miss Maureen’s place and joined a traveling carnival from Silo, Florida. Othella sold balloons and Ruby carried water.

“I declare, Othella, you is sho nuff smart. First gettin us jobs in New Orleans. Now you done got us in good with the carnival circuit. You is got white folks’ sense!”

“Ruby Jean, I got too much good sense for my own good, true enough, but you the one with all the glory. Yep . . . you got the power and the glory.”

Ruby considered what Othella said.

“Must be my Christian nature,” she sighed, smiling broadly. “What we goin to do after the carnival?”

“Don’t you worry none. I’ll think of somethin good for us to do next.”

“Ithink I’m ready to settle down with me a husband,” Ruby said longingly, as she and Othella worked alongside one another in a sugar-cane field one blazing hot day after only a few months in Florida.

“OK, Ruby Jean. I’ll see what I can do,” Othella sighed.

Taking care of Ruby’s needs had become a full-time chore. Jobs, men, places to live. Whenever Ruby had trouble with anything, Othella always came to her rescue.

“I don’t know what would become of me if I didn’t have you, Othella,” Ruby said on her wedding day. Othella had introduced her to Roy Montgomery, a local bootlegger, and within a month he had proposed.

Ruby’s happiness was short-lived. She had married a philanderer who often left her for days at a time.

Othella had married a traveling salesman and this added to Ruby’s depression, as Othella had little time to spend with her anymore.

One afternoon while babysitting for a white family in their home, Ruby, who was pregnant, saw her husband driving down the street with his arm around a woman. Ruby left the children and took out after Roy. She caught up with him in a honky-tonk at the end of the street and shot him dead. She was acquitted of murdering Roy but was sentenced to a month and a day in the county jail for leaving the white kids in the house alone.

Later that year Ruby gave birth to Virgil. Othella was now without her man, as he had gone on a selling trip one week and never returned. She gave birth to her first son shortly after Ruby had had Virgil.

“Just imagine us havin babies this close to one another,” Othella smiled proudly.

“It’s the Lord’s doin,” Ruby replied.

“Ain’t it so.”

“Just one little thing . . .”

“What’s that, Ruby Jean?”

“I kind of wanted me a little girl.”

“Well, maybe your next one will be a girl.”

“I sho nuff hope so.”

“Remember how you use to go up side my head when we was kids and take my girl dolls?” Othella said.

“I remember.”

“And I would always break down and give em to you.”

“Yeah . . . every time.”

“It seemed like I always had somethin you wanted, huh, Ruby Jean?”

“Sho did . . .” Ruby agreed, looking deep into Othella’s eyes.

The years passed quickly. Before Ruby and Othella knew it, they were thirty.

“And I still ain’t got me no daughter,” Ruby lamented.

“Well it sho ain’t because you ain’t been tryin,” Othella reminded her, adding, “Shoot, you just barely feedin you and Virgil. Your little social security check can’t stand another mouth to feed.”

“I don’t care . . . I still want me one,” Ruby said.

The women lived beggardly lives. Othella worked in the fields most of the time and did domestic work when it was available. Ruby collected a social security check.

Because of her poor eating habits, Ruby developed a gum disease and lost all her teeth within a month. The cost of a pair of false teeth sickened her.

“Satan sho like to pile a load on me,” Ruby complained after receiving a threatening letter from a lawyer regarding nonpayment of her dental bill. “I need a man to live good!”

“Or a million dollars,” Othella added.

There had been many men in Othella’s life over the last fourteen years. She now had eight children, all with different fathers. Ruby had delivered the last six babies. Now, experiencing her most difficult pregnancy, Othella depended on Ruby more than ever.

They had been sitting on Othella’s front porch drinking beer that afternoon in July when Othella’s labor started.

“Mama Ruby, you reckon I’ll make it through the night? My labor usually don’t get real bad until after my tenth hour.”

“You’ll be lucky to make it through the dinner hour. We got a mess on our hands this time. You been sick every other day since you got pregnant. When the pains start to comin every ten minutes, send one of the kids to get me,” Ruby said as she was about to leave.

“Don’t go yet, Mama Ruby. Stay and set with me a while. I need somebody to talk to. I’m feelin right de’pressed.”

“Othella, you ain’t got no reason in the world to be de’pressed. You got you all these fine children. This lovely house. Men comin from every direction. And talk about pretty—girl, you sharp as a tack!”

“You know how heavy my load is? What good is a big bunch of kids to me when I work from sun up to sun down five days a week just to feed em? You think I like workin in that cane field? And them beans—woo! Stringin beans is something they can’t get the chain gang to do no more! And my men friends? Where is they when I need em? Like now? Where is the one what rolled off top me and left me with this baby what now kickin my tail right and left? You tell me I ain’t got nothin to be de’pressed about?”

“Well, it could be a whole lot worse. You could be struck by lightnin and paralyzed from the neck down from now on. You could get raped by a Jew, foreigner, or gypsy. You could accidental walk out in front of a bus and get both legs squashed. You could lose your religion.”

“I declare,” Othella said, looking Ruby over carefully. “I hadn’t thought about all that. I guess you right. I ought to be on my knees right this minute praisin God.”

“And another thing, as long as you got me, you got a friend. True-blue. I ain’t goin to let nothin happen to you or them children of yours. Now, like I said, I’ll help you with this baby when the time come,” Ruby assured her.

“I know you will . . . but . . . just for a little while . . . lay your healin hands on my wretched bosom and soothe my broke heart. My man runnin off is somethin I ain’t never got over.”

Ruby sighed and placed her hands across Othella’s chest.

“Lord, let this woman forget that scoundrel what run off and left her for dead. He’s a low-down, funky black dog what ain’t fit to tetch the devil’s hem.”

Othella closed her eyes and moaned as Ruby continued.

“Lord, I went up to Satan last Sunday and slapped him down where he stood with my powerful prayer. Now I ax you, will you let this woman here be in peace? Will you help us birth her baby when the time come? In Jesus’ name I pray. . . . Amen.”

When Ruby left Othella’s house, she did so with tears in her eyes. For she felt she had delivered Othella from evil, as she left Othella with a broad smile on her face and not feeling the pain of her labor half as much.

Then, as promised, Ruby returned to assist Othella to deliver her latest child.

“Come on here, Othella . . . it’s almost here . . . that’s it . . . that’s it. I can see the head. Woo wee!” Ruby exclaimed. She stood back from the bed where Othella lay, writhing in agony.

“Mama Ruby, lay your healin hands on me—help me!” Othella begged.

“You leave my healin hands out of this. This nature, what you goin through. My healin hands is for special occasions. And didn’t I just lay hands on you this afternoon?” Ruby waved her hands high above her head. “You just better come on and birth this baby so I can get on back home. I got a cabbage and some pork on the stove. I leave that simple boy of mine by hisself too long, he subject to set my house afire.”

“Oh, Mama Ruby, I can’t stand this misery!”

“Shet up, Othella,” Ruby grunted, gently slapping the side of Othella’s head with her palm.

Othella gasped and trembled violently. Her legs were splayed and she clawed at the insides of her thighs.

“Oh, Mama Ruby—please do somethin! Get me a shot of gin! Call a roots woman! Do somethin!”

“Didn’t I tell you to shet up!” Ruby placed her hands on her hips and glared down at the desperate woman. “Oh, Collette, bring me another beer, sweetie!” Ruby called over her shoulder. Within seconds a slender, dark brown girl of eight with numerous braids came to the door of the bedroom and handed Ruby a can of beer. Ruby snatched it and drank hungrily. The girl disappeared as quietly and quickly as she had come.

“Aaaarr. . .