CHAPTER 1
Great Expectations
Mama says the only person who ever called her grandmother by her name – Tammalee, or “Miss Tamalee”– was the gangling, skinny, white insurance man with the pitted face and black hair. But after awhile, and after he had eaten many a Sunday dinner consisting of collard greens, fatback, hog maw and cornbread, even he felt comfortable with calling her Doozy.
Her real name was Tammalee Pinkney. She was Mama’s maternal grandmother and she raised Mama because Mama Clay, Mama’s mama, had to go to the big hotel in downtown Charleston, to work to make a way for the family. Mama Clay was a salad maker at the Francis Marion Hotel, at Calhoun and King streets, during the 1950s and ‘60s. Mama said she used to love going to work with Mama Clay because the Francis Marion Hotel was like “mini heaven.”
Mama said she used to love going to work with Mama Clay because the Francis Marion Hotel was like “mini heaven.”
The hotel was twelve stories tall and it engulfed the famed intersection. It was a huge black and coral, brick and stucco building. It had a palatial lobby complete with primrose Italian marble floors and French crystal chandeliers. Mama said that every time she walked into the building she felt like she was entering her own kingdom.
The place had 24-karat gold-plated elevators. She said she would pretend that the elevators were carnival rides, and she would go from floor to floor just to hear the bell ring as people came on and got off of them. Mama Clay may have only been a salad maker, but she so charmed the rich white people who came and went with her stories and jokes that they treated her as if she owned the place. She was the Queen of The Francis Marion. Mama was the princess. Everybody loved them.
Mama Clay may have only been a salad maker, but she so charmed the rich white people who came and went with her stories and jokes that they treated her as if she owned the place. She was the Queen of The Francis Marion. Mama was the princess. Everybody loved them.
Mama Clay’s birth name was Annabelle Pinkney. I don’t think anyone knew that except for maybe her doctor, and that was only because he wrote her prescriptions. Even he called her Mama Clay. Almost since the day she was born on June 11, 1911, she was called Clay. In an attempt to strengthen the muscles in her legs as a baby, Doozy dug a hole in their yard and buried Mama Clay in it up to her mid thighs. Everyone referred to Doozy’s yard as the “football field” because it was just that mammoth. She would bury Mama Clay right next to their Sycamore tree. The football field had only sparse amounts of grass. It was a dirt field and the tree sat in the center of it. Doozy ensconced Mama Clay in that same spot every day because most folks believed that tree had mystical powers. Doozy would dig a small hole and water the dark brown earth until it became crude oil-colored mud. She would then get on her hands and knees and scoop the mud right back into the hole forcing Mama Clay to have to climb her way out of it. Eventually, after two months of repeating this absurd action, a thirteen-month-old Annabelle Pinkney managed to walk herself right out of that black hole. At thirteen months old, she walked out of the clay of the earth and into a new pseudonym that she would carry for the rest of her days.
Eventually, after two months of repeating this absurd action, a thirteen-month-old Annabelle Pinkney managed to walk herself right out of that black hole. At thirteen months old, she walked out of the clay of the earth and into a new pseudonym that she would carry for the rest of her days.
Mama Clay was Doozy’s heart. She knew that Mama Clay was slow, though. In today’s jargon, Mama Clay would be labeled as developmentally delayed. Older men took advantage of that. Mama said that as a child, she often wondered why Doozy never let Mama Clay transact any business. Mama would always see Doozy on the porch painstakingly pouring over bills. One day, as a very young girl while she was ironing clothes and Doozy was sitting in her chair looking them over, she asked her why.
“Doozy, why my mama dough nevah (don’t never) have tah pay da bills? I know you always struggle tah have tah fine uh ride downtown an’ mama work downtown every day.”
Doozy looked up from the bills at her confused granddaughter’s face. Mama could see that she was looking for the right words to use to explain Mama Clay’s shortcomings. After a short pause, Doozy did her best to elucidate.
“Linda, ya (your) mama do da bess (best) she kin wit’ whah (what) da Lawd (Lord) done give she. Clay gah (is going to) make it. She jess (just) gah have tah make it diff’rnt dan (than) everybody else. God jess make my chile tah run uh lil’ slower race dan everybody else is all.”
Linda, ya (your) mama do da bess (best) she kin wit’ whah (what) da Lawd (Lord) done give she. Clay gah (is going to) make it. She jess (just) gah have tah make it diff’rnt dan (than) everybody else. God jess make my chile tah run uh lil’ slower race dan everybody else is all.
Mama Clay was the chief breadwinner of the family. She was just a hair over five feet tall, cinnamon colored and solidly built with huge breasts and kind eyes. Her eyes were so kind that they hid the fact that something unspeakable happened to her as a child. It was so horrendous, in fact, that Mama could never quite muster the gumption to tell me exactly what it was. I have my suspicions. I only mention her breasts because in her later years, after she retired from the hotel, it was Mama Clay’s breasts that nurtured me. Many was the day that, as a baby and a little boy, she would rock me to sleep on her more than ample bosoms.
Mama Clay was the chief breadwinner of the family. She was just a hair over five feet tall, cinnamon colored and solidly built with huge breasts and kind eyes. Her eyes were so kind that they hid the fact that something unspeakable happened to her as a child. It was so horrendous, in fact, that Mama could never quite muster the gumption to tell me exactly what it was.
We watched The Price Is Right at 11 a.m. and the Channel Five midday local news at noon. The “news” was anchored by a pearly toothed, fleshy faced and chubby cheeked brunette with perfectly coifed hair named Bill Sharpe. Bill Sharpe’s hair did not move. It was immaculate. It was thick on the top and shorter, but even, on the sides. His mop was shellacked with the chemist level prodigiousness of Jerry Zucker, with what appeared to be a masterful combination of Breck, Grecian Formula and Consort, to a high gloss. I was enamored with his hair. His tresses and his ability to clearly and succinctly relay the facts of a story as if he were there before, during and after it occurred, combined with his folksy and homespun wit, was flat out the epitome of the “Charleston bubba.” As a little boy, I felt as if Bill Sharpe was my uncle who came to watch Mama Clay and me eat Oscar Meyer Hot Dogs and drink White House Apple Juice everyday just because he loved us enough to keep us informed about what was going on in the world. He just happened to be white, but he was my uncle nonetheless. “Uncle Bill” babysat Mama Clay and me all during the 1980s. After he went off the air everyday at 12:29, we would watch The Young and The Restless at 12:30.
As a little boy, I felt as if Bill Sharpe was my uncle who came to watch Mama Clay and me eat Oscar Meyer Hot Dogs and drink White House Apple Juice everyday just because he loved us enough to keep us informed about what was going on in the world.
I became addicted to Y and R as a little boy, and I watched in a sexually curious trance. Victor Newman taught me how to kiss. Victor Newman was the resident ladies’ man and tycoon of the show’s fictional Genoa City. Somewhere along the line, I guess I internalized what I later dubbed the “index finger slide” technique. This was where Victor would take the object of that episode’s affection into a deep embrace. He would gaze deeply into her eyes and cup both sides of her face. Victor would then take his left index finger and gently slide it down the right side of her face. The enchantress would then melt in his arms as she folded into his torso. He would cup her face in the palm of his hands again so that he could control the angle in which he wanted to go in for the kiss. He would exhale deeply and, in that melodic and hypnotizing Victor Newman voice, tell the object of his desire how beautiful she was. He would then exhale passionately once more and kiss her. If you ask me, Victor Newman should have been voted Time Magazine’s Man of The Year every year of the ‘80s. Whoever said that TV wasn’t an invaluable teaching tool was a damned fool. If they’d ever employed that index finger slide technique, they’d be singing a different song – I’ll bet you that.
I became addicted to Y and R as a little boy, and I watched in a sexually curious trance. Victor Newman taught me how to kiss. Victor Newman was the resident ladies’ man and tycoon of the show’s fictional Genoa City.
While we watched TV, Mama Clay would sit on the pea-, forest- and Kelly-green argyle-colored couch in the den of my Mama and Daddy’s brown brick house. The den was the center of our home. It was the size of the three bedrooms in Doozy’s house combined. It had tan fir-paneled walls and ceramic tiled floors that were copper, canary and India green. I always envisioned the interlocking assorted colored rings in the floor pattern were what tigers jumped through at the circus. We had a twenty-four-inch floor model 1970s style television that was a big oak box with a huge glass in the middle of it. I would rock back and forth in my rocking chair for hours watching that oak box. I was the king of my little world. During the day, I was the supreme and undisputed ruler of the den. The characters on television were jesters sent from Hollywood and New York City specifically to entertain me, King Shaytee. That was how I viewed it, at least.