“Now Sassafrass, get into yourself and find out what’s holding you back. You can create whole worlds, girl. I don’t wanna come and see you like this any more, listening to some white man make it easy for you to stop thinking, telling you all the white folks’ news, so you think that nobody doesn’t know you got to pay your dues to the spirits. Sassafrass, if another person don’t tell you you’re a writer, you’ll know it all your life. And you better take care of it or you’ll end up some kind of wino or slut, trying to fuck it away with some punk-assed schoolteacher who can’t see you a jive-assed little bitch.” Mitch slowly let Sassafrass’ face come into her control, and stood all the way up so Sassafrass couldn’t forget who was overwhelmingly right in any situation. He straightened his shirt in his pants, and left the room to go practice horn playing.

Sassafrass was weak from Mitch’s torrent. She sat so still her old fear of actually being a catatonic came back, and scared her so much she wiggled just to make sure. Mitch didn’t have to say all that even if it was true; it was ridiculous for some man to come tell her she had to create. That’s the same as telling her she had to have babies, and she didn’t want to have babies . . . she could hardly feed herself, and Mitch didn’t feed anybody. All he did was play that old horn, and look for the nearest bar that could use an “avant-garde free-music” sax man. “Humph.” Sassafrass caught herself focusing in on Mitch again instead of herself, because she did want to be perfected for him, like he was perfected and creating all the time. Sassafrass was running all through herself looking for some way to get into her secrets and share, like Richard Wright had done and Zora Neale Hurston had done . . . the way The Lady gave herself, every time she sang.

Do Nothing till You Hear from Me

Pay No Attention to What’s Said

From out of the closet came Billie, The Lady, all decked out in navy crêpe and rhinestones. She was pinning a gardenia in her hair, when Sassafrass realized what was happening.

The Lady sighed a familiar sigh. Sassafrass tried to look as calm as possible and said, “I sure am glad to see you—why you haven’t come to visit since Mama used to put me to bed singing ‘God Bless The Child,’ and you would sit right on my pillow singing with her.” The Lady smiled sort of haughty and insisted Sassafrass listen carefully to everything she was going to say.