Eating Clouds

“What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape “

from “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats

Six days a week, for all of my childhood and some years beyond, my Aunt Yvonne worked in Jackson, Mississippi at two jobs servicing white people. Her employers and those she served loved her, and rewarded her well for her art as a chef. We thought her rich because she took my sister and me shopping at the end of each summer and bought us clothes for the start of school in the fall. When she retired, Aunt Yvonne collected a social security check that paid for her to live. What she saved also helped pay for college, down payments, drug treatment, restitution, and bail for sundry children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and others. In her eighties, Bell’s palsy struck and only half of Aunt Yvonne’s face turned up when she smiled. When she was in service, she always smiled. And she always took care to assure that her appearance and behavior were asexual and guileless.

Stepping lively and beaming smiles, Aunt Yvonne left her house at nine in the morning to help cook at a nursing home. She wore shoes that made sense for a woman who would walk to the bus stop three blocks over and stay on her feet all day. Her serviceable dress – always a governess grey or washed out blue or barely there brown – was short sleeved and buttoned in the front. The hem fell below her knees and the waist was ill defined. Her hair was tightly bound in a bun at her nape and carefully secured with the required black net. No enticing lock ever dared to peek out.

Aunt Yvonne wore no make-up or perfume, but she did wear talcum powder between her legs and her breasts to guard against friction and sweat. A surprisingly dainty handkerchief with flowers and lace grew visibly from her cleavage. In that position it hid where her bosom overflowed, and it was handy when her face perspired. No white person ever saw Aunt Yvonne sweat, but the steam from the pots and pans burned an eternal glow on her cheeks and brow.

Neat and trim in sensible shoes and hair net, cool and collected with her handy kerchief and talcum powder, Aunt Yvonne marched down the road, swinging one arm as if leading a charge. On the other arm swung her large black pocketbook with the necessary money and keys, and enough room to bring home leftovers. She also carried The Upper Room and a New Testament, and a small black apron with white ruffles around the edges. This apron and her dress constituted her uniform for her evening job.

After the nursing home, Aunt Yvonne became the proud pastry chef at “one of the finest white restaurants in Jackson, Mississippi” where colored people entered through the kitchen and stayed there. From that kitchen, Aunt Yvonne gained fame for turning out the lightest biscuits and dinner rolls in town. “Feathers!” some exclaimed. “Clouds!!” they rhapsodized. No white person who ate Aunt Yvonne’s cooking ever choked on quills or saw tears flow like rain. Aunt Yvonne was a sorcerer making magic.

She returned to us each night with bags full of treasure for two little girls who had fought sleep to greet their “Aunty Vonne” when she came home from work. We knew she had braved the nether world to fight for us, and she always brought us her softest clouds to eat. She had taken care to season them herself so that we would not have to swallow our own tears.

Six mornings a week, Aunt Yvonne charged down Cox Street and disappeared around a corner my sister and I were not allowed to turn alone. Neither one of us would have to cook or clean for white people to make our living, she declared. Armored in protective clothing and covered with fairy dust, Aunty Vonne carried books of spells in her sorceress bag as she rode her unicorn to battle the demons who threatened our safe kingdom. Confidently, she charmed the ogres posing as helpless old people and deceived the dragons pretending to be courtly ladies and gentlemen so that they mistook her for a plain and harmless colored girl. Seduced by her smile, they never realized she fed them slow poison of bitterness concealed inside their bread. And they never knew she took back the best of her magic to feed us divine dreams.