MOM LUBY AND THE Social worker

Kristin ituntri P.251

Kristin Hunter

Puddin’ and I been livin’ with Mom Luby three years, ever Si] died. We like it fine. But when
Mom Luby took us down to thought our happy days were over and our troubles about ’Chirren,’
she said that day, ’I got to get some of this State you everything you need. Shoes for you, Elijah,
and dresses I she’s startin’ school. And lunch money and carfare and stuff li only Way I can get
it is to say I’m your mother. So don’t mes Mom Luby is old as Santa Claus, maybe older, with
hair lii and false teeth that hurt so much she takes them out and gun she’s strong as a young
woman and twice as proud. Much a she’s our grandmother, which is something the Welfare
peopi So we went down there scared that morning, Puddin’ hol both our hands. But we was
lucky. The lady behind the d( look at us, and we got out of that gloomy old State Buildinl Mani
Was I glad to get back to Division Street where pe questions about your business. When we got
home, a whole bunch of people was waiti let them in the speakeasy she runs in the back room.
Jake Sissiemae, and Bobo and Walter and Lucas and Mose and 7A regular customers who come
every evening to drink the cc gets from down South and eat the food she fixes, gumb wings and
ribs and potato salad and greens. Bobo picked Puddin’ up to see how much she weighed
( hollered to be let down. Jake gave me a quarter to take his Gumby’s Fantastic Shoe Shine
Parlor and get them shiner change. We let the people in the front door and through I that divides
the front room from the back. Soon they were settled. the big old round table with a half-gallon
jar of corn. Then Sissies* Lucas wanted chicken wings, and I had to collect the money wt. heated
them up on the stove. There was so much to do, I didn1 attention to the tapping on the front door.
But then it came again, louder, like a woodpecker working on • ’Elijah,’ Mom says, ’run see who
it is trying to chip a hole in
174 If It be the police, tell them I’ll see them Saturday.’ But it wasn’t the cops, who come around
every Saturday night to gel their money and drink some of Mom’s corn and put their big black
shoes up on the table. It was a little brownskin lady with straightened hair and glasses and black
high-top shoes. She carried a big leather envelope and was dressed all in dark blue. ’Good
afternoon,’ she says. ’I am Miss Rushmore of the Department of Child Welfare, Bureau of
Family Assistance. Is Mrs Luby at home?’ ’I am she,’ says Mom. ’Never been nobody else.
Come in, honey, and net yourself down. Take off them shoes, they do look like real corncrushers
to me.’ ’No thank you,’ says Miss Rushmore. She sits on the edge of one of Mom’s chairs and
starts pulling papers out of the envelope. ’This must be Elijah.’ ’Yes ma’am,’ I say. And where is
Arlethia?’ ’Taking her nap,’ says Mom, with a swat of the broom at the middle of the curtain,
which Puddin’ was peeking through. She’s five and fat, and she I. wes to hang around grownups.
Especially when they eating. Mom hit the curtain with the broom again, and Puddin’ ran off. The
lady didn’t even notice. She was too busy peeking under the lids of the pots on the stove. ’Salt
pork and lima beans,’ she says. ’Hardly a proper diet for growing children.’ ’Well,’ says Mom,
’when I get me some of this State Aid, maybe I can afford to get them canned vegetables and box
cereal. Meanwhile you welcome to what we have.’ The lady acted like she didn’t hear that. She
just wrinkled up her nose like she smelled something bad. ’First,’ she says, ’we must have a little
talk about your budget. Do you understand the importance of financial planning?’ ’Man arranges
and God changes,’ says Mom. ’When I got it, I spends it, when I don’t, I do without.’ ’That,’
says the lady, ’is precisely the attitude I am here to correct.’ She pulls out a big yellow sheet of
paper. ’Now this is our Family Budget Work Sheet. What is your rent?’ ’I ain’t paid it in so long
I forgot,’. Mom says. Which set me in a fit because everybody but this dumb lady knows Mom
owns the house. Ik’hind her hack Morn gave me a whack that stopped my giggles. The lady
sighed. ’We’ll get to the budget later,’ she says. ’First, there arc inc questions you left blank
today. How old were you when Elijah was born?’ ’Thirty-two,’ says Mom.
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And he is now thirteen, which would make you forty-five,’ says the lad; Thirty-eight,’ says Morn
without batting an eye. ’I’ll put down forty-five,’ says the lady, giving Mom a funny look. Ni
doubt your hard life has aged you beyond your years. Now, who is father, and where is he?’
Lemme see,’ says Mom, twisting a piece of her hair. ’I ain’t seen Mr since 1942. He was a
railroad man, you see, and one time he just too train out of here and never rode back.’ `1942,’
Miss Rushmore wrote on the paper. And then said, ’But th. impossible!’ `The dear Lord do teach
us,’ says Morn, ’that nothing in life is impossi if we just believe enough.’ ’Hey, Morn, we’re out
of corn!’ cries Lucas from the back room. Miss Rushmore looked very upset. ’Why’ she says,
’you’ve got a man there.’

’Sure do sound like it, don’t it?’ Mom says. ’Sure do. You got one to . honey?’ `That’s my
business,’ says the lady `I was just trying to be sociable,’ says Morn pleasantly. ’You sure do see
interested in mine.’ I ran back there and fetched another mason jar of corn from the sinkitchen. I
told Lucas and Bobo and them to be quiet. Which wasn’t goi to be easy, cause them folks get
good and loud when they get in a ca game. I also dragged Puddin’ away from the potato salad
bowl, where s had stuck both her hands, and brought her in the front room with me. S was
bawling. The lady gave her a weak smile. ’Now,’ Mom says. About these shoes and school
clothes.’ ’I am not sure,’ Miss Rushmore says, ’that you can get them. There something wrong in
this house that I have not yet put my finger on. Bu this is what you do. First you fill out Form
905, which you get at the Burea of Family Assistance, room 1203. Then you call the Division of
Child Welfare and make an appointment with Mr Jenkins. He will give you For
202 to fill out. Then you go to the fifth floor, third corridor on the left, turn right, go in the
second door. You stand at the first desk and fill out Fori
23-B, Requisition for Clothing Allowance. You take that to Building Three, room 508, third
floor, second door, fourth desk and then — ’ ’Lord,’ Mom says, ’by the time we get clothes for
these chirren, they will have done outgrowed them.’ ’I don’t make the rules,’ the lady says.
`Well, honey,’ says Mom, ’I ain’t got time to do all that, not right now Tonight I got to go deliver
a baby. Then I got to visit a sick old lady and work
176 Kristin HuIrti

HI her with some herbs. Then I got to go down to the courthouse and get a young man out of jail.
He’s not a bad boy, he’s just been keepin’ bad company. Then I got to preach a funeral.’ The
lady looked at Mom like she was seeing a spirit risen from the dead. But you can’t do those
things!’ she says. But I happen to know Mom Luby can. She’s a midwife and a herb doctor and
an ordained minister of the Gospel, besides running a place to eat and drink after hours. And she
wouldn’t need Welfare for us if people would only pay her sometimes. Mom says, ’Honey, just
come along and watch me.’ She picked up her old shopping bag full of herbs and stuff Miss
Rushmore picked up her case and followed like somebody in a trance. Mom has that effect on
people sometimes. They were gone about two hours, and me and Puddin’ had a good time eating
and joking and looking into everybody’s card hands. I was surprised to see Mom bring Miss
Rushmore straight into the back room when they got back. She sat her down at the table and
poured her a drink of corn. To tell the truth, that lady looked like she needed it. Her glasses was
crooked, and her shoes were untied, and her hair had come loose from its pins. She looked kind
of pretty, but lost. ’Mrs Luby,’ she said after a swallow of corn, ’you don’t need my help.’ Ain’t
it the truth,’ says Mom. ’I came here to help you solve your problems. But now I don’t know
where to begin.’ ’What problems?’ Morn asks. `You are raising these children in an unhealthy
atmosphere. I am not even sure they are yours. And you are practising law, medicine, and the
ministry without a licence. I simply can’t understand it.’ ’Cad’t understand what, honey?’ The
lady sighed. ’How you got more done in two hours than I ever get done in two years.’ ’You folks
oughta put me on the payroll,’ says Morn with a chuckle. ’We can’t,’ says Miss Rushmore.
’You’re not qualified.’ Lucas started laughing, and Bobo joined in, and then we all laughed,
Mose and Zerline and Jake and Sissiemae and Puddin’ and me. We laughed so hard we rocked
the room and shook the house and laughed that social worker right out the door. `She got a point
though,’ Mom says after we finished laughing. ’You need an education to fill out forty pieces of
paper for one pair of shoes. Never you mind, chirren. We’ll make out fine, like we always done.
Cut the cards, Bobo. Walter, deal.’
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