Velociworld

NOSTALGIA 23

Well, here we go. This will be a Sordid Nostalgia™.

Did you have a maid growing up? I was raised by a huge black woman named Etta. Loved her. Loved to torment her, too. I'd climb on top of the fridge to get away from her, and she'd chase me down with the broom. I saw more of Etta than I did my own mother. Bridge, Altar Guild, hula lessons, hey. My mom's plate was full.

Etta was great. We'd been through a couple of maids before that, one of whom locked my older sister in the closet for a few hours. My dad almost ripped that woman's head off. He could have paraded the head down Broughton Street and gotten away with it, too, because this was The Segregated South, version 1963, and she'd dared touch that child.

I bring this up because I really liked Etta. She was always good to me. And yet on Thursdays (Etta was daily, but a lot of people had a maid on Thursday only), we'd hide behind the Tysons' brick wall on the side of their yard and play Nigger Maid Raid Day.

You filled up water balloons, and when all the maids walked together to the bus stop at Althea and Waters you'd pelt them from behind the wall. The only rule? You couldn't, wouldn't hit your own maid. Everyone else's was fair game.

I was about six years old.

Somebody taught us this shit. My older brother and his friends, sure, but kids don't think this sort of thing up on their own. Those maids took that shellacking, and never said a word, because they needed the job.

It never crossed our minds this sort of behavior was repugnant. My dad once beat our asses for putting frogs in our slingshots and shooting them up in the air so they'd splat on the street coming down. But I don't think he'd have batted an eye about Raid Day. Maybe. I don't know. Actually, that was a valuable domestic resource we were tormenting. Yeah, he'd have beaten our asses.

I often wonder about the terrible things I did as a child, not knowing any better, but knowing better, even at that age. I also wonder how many times Etta probably peed in my orange juice, and went home to a gin and tonic and a good chuckle. I hope she peed in my brother's more often, and took pity on me.

UPDATE: I'd almost forgotten. My sister Robin convinced me at one point that black people laid white turds. So every time Etta would use the bathroom I'd race in after her to see if I could see a white turd swirling down the bowl.

That probably explains more about my adult psyche than a decade of analysis could unearth.