Lorraine E. Mason

Only a Quarter

Except for a quarter, she did not have a brass copper to her name. With three little mouths to feed, the young mother pondered how to stretch twenty-five cents in order to feed a family of four for two days. In 1970 Liberia, a quarter would buy three loaves of bread at five cents each and a scoop of Blue Band Margarine with five cents to spare. Or it might buy a ten cent cup of pussava rice and a can of sardines for 15 cents.  Even so neither purchase would be sufficient to sustain a family of four for two days. Unless . . .

Humidity sapped the air as the African sun blazed directly overhead. All about were the bustling rhythms of a Saturday morning. Mothers and children washed bright-colored clothes in shiny metal tubs, scrubbing away the grime on washboards while others cleaned their rooms.  Women set foot to shop at the General Market for the day’s meal.

As the young mother absentmindedly hung her hand-washed laundry up to dry, she called her nine year-old daughter, Yatta, the oldest of her three children, to her side. Yatta and her younger siblings, five-year old Madjay and three-year old Youga, had been wrestling nearby in the dull yellow sand just beneath the clothesline, clueless to the dilemma their young mother faced.

It was with every ounce of dignity she could muster that the young mother lowered her 30-year-old body stinging from years of labor and peered downward into her daughter’s deep bronze eyes.  As she gently stroked Yatta’s braids, she uttered the words, “Mama broke today, oh. I ain’t got no money but 25 cents.”

Her words seemed to dangle in mid-air as she looked for support, assurance, maybe even a suggestion from her precocious child, but none was forthcoming.  Yatta seemed more perplexed than concerned at the words reeling out of her mother’s mouth.  Just for today, she wanted to romp about and play with her sister and brother and not have to take on the role of her mother’s helper. The young mother, sensing this from her child, sent Yatta on her way.  She admonished herself for having given in to the urge to drag her daughter into the matter in the first place. “No child should have to be burdened with this,” she told herself.

The young mother knew her children knew counted on the fact that she had always managed to put food on the family table, doing extra work on the side selling peppered chicken and roast meat, sewing, and pressing hair on the weekends to supplement her measly income of seventy-five dollars a month.  She thanked God she had learned how to sew and cook while living with the Fosters – her other family.

The Fosters had promised her parents that they would take good care of her, send her to school, and teach her good life skills if she left Balala and went to live with them in Monrovia.  In return, she, and other girls like her in the home were expected to help in the care and upkeep of the Foster family. Sewing and pressing hair came naturally since all the girls in the Foster’s home dolled up on the weekends, designing and stitching their own clothes, burning ears and the nape of their necks with the pressing comb until they mastered the art. It was those skills she used every weekend to help her make ends meet.

The aroma of meals cooking over hot coal pots and portable metal stoves infiltrated the air. The young mother reflected on how she managed to stretch her small salary from month-to-month selling food to the neighborhood men who gathered religiously on the weekends to drink, play ludo, cards, and checkers under the mango trees.  The men sat on rattan chairs drinking everything from Club Beer, to palm wine and cane juice.  She took pride in making certain that her meat and chicken were seasoned through and through to the bone.

She had learned early on that the men preferred her peppered chicken and meat during their drinking fests; because her meats were so well-seasoned, they wolfed down chicken bones and all. The pepper stewed on the meat and pepper sucked from the spicy carcasses helped keep the men sober, allowing them to indulge further. As long as the men lingered at the door of drunkenness without ever fully entering, they drank, played, and ate until the shimmery glow of the morning sun crept up over the horizon. To keep her customers, the young mother aimed to please by preparing enough sober medicine to last the men through the night.

In addition to the men, there were weekends when the young mother pressed hair at three dollars a head and sewed the clothes of women and children in her Cooper Farm neighborhood. Cooper Farm, where other residents were in the same boat as she – one-room renters, living hand-to-mouth in a part of the city that oozed the foul smell of the government toilet and the overrunning gutter where families illegally dumped their slop.  Every shift in the wind offered up the stench of body wastes and decaying trash.

With three little mouths to feed, and receiving no help from their father— he had evaporated like dew off the grass after taking a job in the interior—the young mother had no aversion to hard work and felt no job was beneath her if it meant providing food and shelter for her young ones. After being raised by the Fosters, she had chosen to make Monrovia home.  There was no use returning to Balala.  Everyone there was worse off than she.  And there was no way she was turning to the Fosters for help.  They raised her, but it was not always under the best conditions: Work! Work! Work! Late nights, middle-of-the night, till fore day in the morning. And barely a high school education to show for it. So here she was on a hot Saturday afternoon, the air thick with humidity intermingled with the odious odor of the government toilet and the gutter, her mind toiling over her predicament.

She had seen other roomers, single mothers like her take on godpas – even resorting to selling their bodies to help make ends meet.  Every month the godpas, who were much older, wealthy government big shots, paid rents, divvied up spending money, and stacked ladies’ rooms with food in exchange for a little company and sex. It was obvious which women were kept by the godpas; they dressed nicely and she never sewed for them. Not because she didn’t need the money, God knows she did, but their clothes were tailor-made or imported merchandise purchased from Lebanese storekeepers.

Then there were other women who scurried in and out of men’s rooms exchanging sex for money. Still others allowed pisty neighborhood men to get fresh with them: squeezing their breasts and pressing against their mounds for a little bit of change here and there.  She knew one thing for sure; she did not want that for herself.  Not even if it meant her life might be a tad bit better.  Unaware, the young mother spoke out loud, “What kinda mother would I be and what kinda example I will be setting for my two daughters them? Just because time hard for me, ain’t mean I gotta give my dignity away like dat nah, eh heh.”

She painstakingly pinned each article of clothing to the clothesline. It was the pain – not from the pangs of hunger invading her own stomach, like warriors doing battle that brought her to tears, but the thought that her three little babies might be experiencing far worse. Mealtime was fast approaching and the clatter clatter of neighbors’ metal cook spoons against iron-clad pots and the savory smell of pussava penetrated the air.  Earlier that morning she had whipped up the last two scoops of Bird Custard for the children, while she contemplated how to stretch the twenty-five cents so that there was sufficient food to last until Monday-the end of the month.

Monday through Friday were spent at Mr. Saab’s furniture store, laboring at a job she loathed.  She stood on her feet all day attending to the needs of rich customers who drove expensive cars and dressed in the latest style.  And all day long Mr. Saab worked at making her his side squeeze; but she would have none of that, although she often imagined what life would be like if she did not have to scrape and scratch to make ends meet from month-to-month.  What would it be like if she had someone on whom to depend, someone to help carry her financial load?

Her 12×12 bedroom in Mr. Rich’s rooming house rented for $25 a month. The rest of the money was used to pay Yatta’s tuition at the private school and for the upkeep of the family. The principal had consented for her to pay the tuition in installments throughout the school year.  She remembered him saying to her, “Your daughter is clever and we know you are a hard-working mother, so we want to help you give your child a decent education.  We can’t allow you not to pay, but we can make it easy for you to afford it.”

She and the principal, Mr. White, had worked out a payment plan of $25 a month, affording Yatta the opportunity to attend a good private school. Then each month she bought a 100-pound bag of pussava rice and paid her friend Ma Massa cold water for taking care of Madjay and Youga. She had learned that having a bag of rice at home meant there would always be food on the table and food to share with others who fell on hard times. The Fosters had taught her that. They drilled the importance of sharing during family prayers; but sharing meant sometimes there was no money left over for anything extra.  She had tried to be prudent when it came to her budget. She always made certain there was money set aside from the extra income generated from sewing, pressing hair, or selling meat, money set aside to supplement family meals and for emergencies.

On this Saturday amidst the laughter, families preparing for lunch and the hurried activities around her, there was no hair to press or clothes to sew, and for the first time the young mother did not have enough money to prepare her peppered chicken and roast meat for the men gathered under the mango trees.  And she certainly did not have enough to sustain her until Monday rolled around.

The young mother reached deep within her bosom, excavating the lone coin tied securely at the end of her best red handkerchief. As she rolled the shiny coin between her slender brown fingers, she wondered where she might have gone wrong. She wondered if the austerity facing the country had anything at all to do with it. Her method had worked for her, except for today.  How had she miscalculated this time?  Only twenty-five cents to hold her over until Monday came around. Twenty-five cents until her employer, Mr. Saab, would place those worn dollars that had passed through so many other hands, to finally find their way into hers.  For the first time, she began to contemplate the unthinkable . . .

Copyright © 2010 Lorraine Mason