Three Times a Loser

Three Times a
Loser

by

Austin Mitchell

        
Miss Cora lugged her bag after her. She didn’t look back at the small two bedroom
house, she and Hubert had built. But now he had thrown her out because as he
claimed the property was bought in his name. She decided to stop with her
sister, Vera, that night.

           
“You made Hubert trick you and take away your place? Why  can’t you learn? It’s the same thing Benny did
to you.”

           
Vera was a forty year old woman. She was married and the mother of two boys and
two girls. Both women were makers of bags, hats and mats. Vera’s husband
is away in the United States on the Farm Work program. Cora is unmarried and
has no children. She is in her mid-thirties.

           
Vera gave her some food which she ate.

           
“So what are you going to do? You can’t let Hubert take away your hard earned
labor like that.”

           
“When we went down to the Justice of the Peace house, he said  only Hubert alone name was on the title.”

            
 Vera put her hands over her mouth. She forgot that Cora could not read or
write very well.

    
         “That old robber, I bet he
never put up any money to buy the land or build the house. Why is the law so
unfair?”

           
In addition to putting up the money to buy the land, Vera knew that it was
Cora’s money which had built the house. She doubted if she could find any of
those receipts for things she had purchased for the house. In any case Hubert
would claim that he was the one who had given her the money.

           
Vera told her that she could stay with her until her husband returned.

           
Before Cora went to bed that night she thought about her life. Why had she been
tricked by two men? She had gone to live with her first boyfriend, Benny, on his parent’s land. A year
after they started living together, he said that his parents were complaining
that it didn’t look right for them to be living together under their roof. He
said that his father would cut off a piece of his land for them to build a
house on.

           
He asked her to help him and in six months they had built a one bedroom
bungalow with space for additional rooms. The house was hardly finished when
they started quarrelling. She soon found out that Benny was being unfaithful to her. Instead, it was Benny, who was
accusing her of being unfaithful to him. One evening she came home to find the
gate locked and her things thrown out. Benny didn’t reach home that night and
she had to stop with a neighbor.

           
Benny’s mother told her the next day that he had found another woman. She had
protested and told her that she wanted back the money she had spent on the
house.

           
She moved and went to live with friends. When at last she saw Benny, he denied
that she had spent any money on the house. The Justice of the Peace told her
that she should have stored the bills for what she had spent on the house. She
started crying and didn’t go to bed until after midnight.

***

           
Cora spent four months with Vera before she went to live with another sister,
Gladys. During this time they had several confrontations with Hubert but just
as with Benny nothing came out of it. A year after Hubert threw her out, she
bought a piece of land and then the following year she put up a one bedroom
house on it and moved to live there. By this time she was seeing a man named
Rupert Hunter.

           
Rupert made bags and mats. She decided that she didn’t want to go into any more
partnerships as far as land and house were concerned. She made her savings
through a weekly partner and this was what had allowed her to build the house and buy the land, Hubert stole from her.

            Rupert gave
her an allowance each week that could hardly do.  By this time she was in
her late thirties and Rupert had just reached forty. He had never been married,
but had two teenaged daughters living with their mothers. She encouraged him to
continue supporting them.

           
A year after they started living together, she came home to find a new set of
locks on her front door and her things outside. She searched her bag and found
the land title. Vera and others believed that she couldn’t read, but she had
been learning to read from old newspapers. She put back the title. She knew
where a locksmith lived. She told him that she had locked herself out of the
house.

           
She made him take off the ones, Rupert had put on and put on the ones she had
bought.

***

            “What
are you doing here? You don’t live here again.”

              Rupert
had a woman with him about ten years younger than him.

           
  Cora took out the title and flashed it before him.

             “That
doesn’t mean anything.”

            
“It means that I own this place. You had better find somewhere to put your
girlfriend for  the night.”

           
  She went and locked the door and then came
back to face Rupert and his woman.

           
 “So all this time, this was what you were planning to do to me?”

           
  “Rupie, how you told me that it was your house?” the woman asked.

           “I
own half of this house, don’t make her tell you no lies.”

           “It’s
only one bedroom, I see, I’m going to my house. The two of you can settle your
differences. I don’t think you need me,” the young lady said and was gone.

           
 “You aren’t going after her, Rupert?” Cora asked and laughed.

           
   Rupert walked away, his head bowed.

           
   He came to see her a few days later. He told her that it was
all a mistake, but Cora was not willing to give him a second chance. She has
decided to devote her life to serving the Lord. If he believes that there is a
good man out there waiting for her then he will make
her find him. The End.

 Austin's blog: stredwick.blogspot.com