The Life of the Author: Maya Angelou. Linda Wagner-Martin

2 St. Louis and Fear

      Parked on their road, a gray DeSoto with California plates appeared – without preamble, without warning. The exuberance of Bailey, Sr., the well-dressed veteran returned to his hometown, was the first surprise: their daddy was not the taciturn figure they remembered from years before. He was talkative, even jovial. He followed them around during their day. He paid them compliments. He praised his mother’s cooking. He talked with Uncle Willie. Whenever Ritzie heard his speech, however, she thought she was listening to a white man: his phrasing was full of “er”s and “hem”s and supposedly thoughtful pauses. He did not sound as if he had grown up in Stamps. He drove around to visit people from his Arkansas years. The store became a gathering place, and for once it was filled with lively conversation.

      The days of Bailey’s visit sped past: Bailey, Jr. and Ritzie had never driven in cars at all; now they became seasoned travelers. If they missed supper as they drove places with their dad, Annie would scold. That was the only visible sign that she was not convinced this visit was all to the good. While her son seemed to have money for gasoline, and seemed to be happier than she had seen him during his early years, she felt suspicious. Why had he come? What was he up to? It was during the third week of his visit to Stamps that he began talking about his plan – to drive back to St. Louis, where Vivian now lived again with the Baxter family, and take the children with him. They might enjoy being city children again. They might enjoy the comforts the Baxters could provide. (What he asked Bailey, Jr. and Marguerite, however, was whether they wanted to go to California and live with him. That was a very different question.)

Annie disagreed about his removing the children, but it was already Bailey’s conviction that his children should leave Stamps and move to St. Louis (he could see the advantages of their benefiting from the Baxter family’s prominence in Missouri). So Annie got clothes ready, without saying much about the journey ahead. She sat up nights sewing, new shirts and pants for Bailey, Jr. and made-over dresses and outfits for Ritzie. The new clothes filled box after box.

      In the car, Ritzie sat between her father’s luggage and those boxes. Bailey, in contrast, shared the front seat with Bailey, Sr. They joked and laughed. Ritzie could barely hear them over the noise from the open windows: there was nothing for her to do between the boxes and the suitcases. But she could see that sometimes her father let Bailey, Jr. put his left hand on the steering wheel in order to help drive.

      After the first day’s drive, however, the fun slowed. Bailey, Sr., began talking about how much they would like St. Louis. It was so progressive; it had large train stations and bus depots – not to mention auto sales and repair facilities. It was an up and coming city. He asked them, repeatedly, if they were eager to see their mother whom they barely remembered. Both children recoiled, feeling that they had been tricked: when would they ever see California? When would they see their father again? All they wished for at that time was a return to the known, a return to Momma and Uncle Willie, the people they knew truly loved them. Bailey, Jr. was still pleased with his front-seat window on the changing worlds, but Ritzie came to her reality with a shock: of course, this was the man who had once sent them his photograph as a Christmas present, their only Christmas present. This stranger who said he was their father might truly be someone from another world.

      She understood now why Momma was tight-lipped about the trip. It was clear that Annie Henderson would have preferred the children stay with her in Stamps. But their father was their father, Ritzie understood, and whatever he chose to do was a kind of law. Marguerite behaved. She did not cry. Neither did Annie, but Uncle Willie went back inside almost too quickly. The trip seemed to be open-ended: how long would it be before she and Bailey saw Stamps again?

      Bailey’s thoughts were rushing ahead … he remembered how pretty “Mother Dear” was, how cheerful, how small and contained. He was eager to see her again. But neither of the children was eager to see sharp-tongued Grandmother Baxter, who rode herd over her six children – and the neighborhood – as if it were her own private posse. Reflective of the “meanness” her husband often praised, she too vaunted things the “Bad Baxters” might do. Who could win the most fights? Who could be the most audacious? Would it be Tommy or Billy, or perhaps Vivian? Leah was an acknowledged ladylike girl, but Vivian was what her father called “a girl-boy.” The black part of St. Louis was a gold-rush kind of place, filled with gambling, drinking, and lottery and numbers runners. The Baxters not only enjoyed the city; they welcomed all its activities.

Marguerite sat in a fog of fear. What she remembered about Grandmother Baxter frightened her. She didn’t remember Grandfather Baxter at all. The boys were simply one big blur of hostility. Bumping along the unpaved roads, the car seemed to be taking her and Bailey to a horrible end, a place not far from the mansions that turned out to be haunted in their ten-cent comics. She did remember the paved streets and those large houses; she did remember feeling lost in the grand houses that were built of many rooms, stairways, and outside porches. She was not eager to see those houses again.

      As the five-hundred-mile trip seemed to be coming to an end, Bailey, Sr., became more focused. He needed to find the Baxter house; he needed to appear to be in charge. Even though Annie had sent along a basket of food for the long journey, he forgot to offer it to the children. They grew more and more tired of the car’s movement, and more and more hungry. The car seldom stopped. Their father remembered to look for gas stations only when the needle pointed to E. And he sometimes failed to stop when they needed to relieve themselves.

      Arriving at the Baxter house, Marguerite felt again how isolated her life was going to be. Everybody praised Bailey, Jr. He looked like the Baxter family: his skin was dark, his body was compact. But his “little sister” was taller than he, and her height seemed ungainly. She was awkward in many things. She was not pretty. And even though Uncle Tommy praised her for her mind and her ability to learn, he also admitted she was not a pretty girl, and probably never would be. Her brown skin was the only one of her features that