Reflections on "THE HELP"...ANNABELLE ZEEZO

My brother Charley and I had a nanny who we called Annabelle Zeezo. Her name was Annabelle Smith and she lived in downtown San Diego, in the "black section", as it was known in those days. It was a tiny area around Market Street from the ocean almost to El Cajon. In those days it was terrible for black people; it isn't much better today. There was both blatant and subtle prejudice that was taken as just a way of life for most white people. They had no interest in how a black person felt or what their life was like. Annabelle was beautiful. She was dark chocolate brown and she smelled like apples and cinnamon. Annabelle's arms were always wide-open and loving. She changed our wet diapers and potty trained us. She picked us up when we fell and cleaned our cuts and scrapes. She was always singing beautiful "negro" spirituals and my personal favorite, "Shortnin' Bread." "Mammy's little baby loves shortnin', shortnin', mammy's little baby loves shortnin' bread!" I asked her to sing it again and again, and she did. Charley and I were both adopted from different families. I was a chosen and wanted child, but Charley was never wanted by either my mother or my father. My mother, Lucile, had many good qualities, but being a mother wasn't one of them. I believe my mother had a mental illness because she would act in cycles of being quiet and staying in her room, and reading and drinking; to times when she was in a furious rage and took it out mainly on Charley but also on myself. A great deal of physical and mental abuse went on in our home. Charley and I were actually tortured by my mother in many ways which I will discuss later with you. But for today, I will take the one story that spotlights what Annabelle meant to Charley and me. My brother Charley was three years old at the time, and I was five. We were both potty trained by the time we were a year old. But Charley had a problem with bedwetting at night. No matter how hard he was spanked, nor how long he sat in the "jailhouse" chair, he could not stop wetting the bed at night. On this particular night, my mother told Charley that he was not going to wet the bed that night because he was going to sleep on a mat in front of the bathroom door, and if he couldn't get to the bathroom in time that way, then he would be punished severely the next morning. I awoke the next morning to bloody screams. Charley's screams. I ran out into the hall ans saw my brother lying on the floor on the mat, and my mother straddling his chest and cutting the tip of his penis with a razor blade. I was terrified that I would be the next victim. I ran and hid under my bed. Charley screamed really loudly. I heard my mother get up and walk past my bedroom door into her own bedroom. There she dressed in her nurse's uniform and when she was through dressing, she walked past Charley down the stairs, out the door, and to her car, and drove away to her work at the hospital. Charley still lay screaming on the mat. I ran to him and I could hear Annabelle coming and crying loudly, "My baby, my baby, what did she do to my baby?" Annabelle ran up the stairs, gathered Charley in her arms, took him into the bathroom, and bathed and bound his wound. She gave him some baby aspirin and then she had me follow her and we went down the stairs and into her room in back-she was a live-in maid and nanny-and she sat in her rocking chair and rocked Charley, and sang him songs. My brother finally fell asleep, and Annabelle was speaking to herself and she was saying, "What can I do? What can I do? Who would take the word of a black woman against a white nurse?" To say that Charley and I loved Annabelle, is to put it mildly. She was our love, our hope; she was our mother. Annabelle didn't give up. She spoke to one of my mother's friends, Katie Salisbury, and told her what my mother was doing to Charley, specifically about the cutting. Mr. and Mrs. Salisbury spoke to my parents and asked if they could adopt Charley, but my mother would not give up control of Charley, and Charley was doomed to a life of pain and hardship. Annabelle was treated by my mother as if she was a slave; certainly a person with no rights whatsoever. My mother would hire Annabelle and then find something wrong and fire her, then two weeks later she would be after her to hire her again. And Annabelle came back because she loved Charley and me and wanted to protect us and give us as much love as she could. She was a strong, brave, black woman who put her life on the line to try to protect Charley and me. I remember clearly Annabelle polishing the silverware, scrubbing, waxing, and buffing the floors on her hands and knees, and enduring the constant nagging of my mother who treated her with such disrespect. Annabelle would take Charley and I to the San Diego Zoo every Saturday morning, and on Sundays we would take the ferry across the Bay to Coronado for daddy was an executive chef at the Hotel del Coronado. Of course we didn't bother daddy's job, it was just that we could take the ferry across to Coronado and then go back across the Bay again to San Diego. It was a beautiful ride. It was because of my extreme love for Annabelle, and also because of my personal hero, Dr. George Washington Carver, that I was so happy when I learned that I would have a black grandchild. Baby Skeeta was an answer to my soul's prayer to have a large, interracial family. My daddy did not treat Annabelle badly. My daddy loved and respected every person that he met. He tried to defend Annabelle, but my mother could never understand where he was coming from. But he would be particularly kind and generous to Annabelle to try to offset what my mother was treating her like. Annabelle did not last long in our life because my mother finally ended up firing her permanently, but she made such an impact on Charley and I in the short time we were blessed to have her in our lives. I saw Annabelle one more time when I was 17 years old. My mother somehow found her when we had the restaurant. I was saddened when I saw Annabelle again because her plump arms were thin and weary, and her face was creased with years of hard work and pain, but she still loved Charley and she loved me, however I did not need as much protecting as Charley. But that is another story when you're ready for it. Charley and I knew that true love was to be found in the warm arms of a wonderful black woman.